


Sweet Love, I Will No More Abuse Thee

by mentalismmaria



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon Divergent, Horror Elements, Multi, Shivering Isles, oc/canon heresy, pretty pictures spliced in, rampantly bisexual main character(s), the champ of sheogorath is not the hero of kvatch in this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13023990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentalismmaria/pseuds/mentalismmaria
Summary: At the edge of death and with nothing else to lose, a prisoner takes an opportunity granted by a bizarre twist of fate. Now, she is indebted to the lord of this strange land, whether she likes it or not.[illustrations included]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a rather decadent piece full of oc/canon and broad liberties taken, with some details and the handling of main quest. if you break out in hives whenever you see something noncanon or disregarding the metalore, perhaps this isn't for you

“You still alive in there, skinny?”

Gamiles rapped the iron bars of the cage with his knuckles. The metal of his gauntlet made an anachronistic clang against them, ringing in turn through the iron skeleton of the flimsy prison. The cells of this brig might as well had been made of toothpicks; he couldn’t wait to get off this damn boat.

A hunched over figure in the corner, small and pitiful, comprised entirely of bony joints folded over each other in sackcloth prison rags, raised their head in acknowledgment. The guard couldn’t see their face; the curtain of their unwashed, matted hair had become a creature all its own. He likened this one to something more like a zombie than one of their prisoners.

“Yes’ser,” it croaked.

Gamiles nodded his acknowledgment, and moved on. Nothing else to see here. They were only one of the easier to handle responsibilities he had tonight. It would be a long trip yet until they reach Leyawiin.

He was more used to the solid ground of a dungeon than the gently rocking hull of a ship. Him and a handful of other graveyard shift guardsmen were collected along with a block’s worth of inmates from the Imperial Prison - something about a security sweep. Why it was only one particular cellblock wasn’t explained. Not that it mattered. The overtime would hopefully be worth it.

Luckily, there weren’t many inmates to look after on the ship; their block was old and out of the way, hardly used other than a few life sentences rotting away in it. The ‘zombie’ was one of them. They didn’t even have a record on him. Her? It? Did it matter anymore? They’d probably die before the trip’s over, as weak as they were.

The Argonian from cell 12 began kicking up a fuss again about the rumors of where they were going. Nothing they could say could dissuade the whispers of being sent straight to the chopping block as soon as they arrived. Who would believe a guardsman, anyways? The lizard thrashed in his cage irritably, but a few warning strikes to the bars shut him up. If Gamiles knew what the deal was, he’d tell him. He thought himself at least that merciful.

When the ship hitched suddenly, Gamiles had to stop himself from falling over in front of the prisoners. As he heard the wind pick up from on deck, he barely noticed one of the prisoners chuckling at his awkward staggering. There was a shout in between the howls of the wind, and Gamiles watched the rest of his fellow guards march upwards. It must have been serious, he worried behind his helmet; surely they didn’t have storms this bad on the Niben?

 The ship began to rock, sending wooden cups to the floor and causing swords to fall out of their weapon racks. Other inmates were sharing hushed whispers amongst themselves, of their destination, and the forces that brought them there.

 

“Its the chopping block for sure if we’re headed to Leyawiin. Do you know what they do to Argonians in those dungeons?” Someone hissed in a distinctly reptilian tone. As soon as the coast was clear, it drummed up a new buzz of worried murmurs.

“You hear anything from the guards? Anything at all?”

“At least they didn’t pick up Dreth for this as well; I hate that loudmouth bastard.”

“I feel a sickness in the air tonight, some dark forces must be laughing at our plight.” An aged Nord man said ominously. A few of the others stirred uncomfortably, in silent agreement.

The haggard inmate in the corner dared to brush back their mat of hair. It made them flinch; the light it shielded them from was blinding to their failing eyes, even if it was just an oil lamp. Their eyes were blue, and unfocused. Sunken into their eye sockets from malnutrition. Their voice cracked from misuse as they piped up from the hushed conversations.

“That’s just Bravil as it is, stranger. You get used to it.”

A few chuckles rumbled from the cells. The Nord peered at the glimpse of the other inmate’s face with mild surprise.

“Well I’ll be damned, that’s a woman under there.”

The protective curtain of filthy hair closed just as quickly as it opened.

“Didn’t fuckin’ ask, ser.”

“You from Bravil, old hen?”

Bony, shaky fingers laced together at the top of their folded knees, almost contemplatively.

“Wish I wasn’t.”

The curiosity towards them was short-lived, as the wind began to howl and the prisoners turned their worry towards a coming storm. They were surely entering the bay by now, but a storm like this on the river wasn’t that common, right? Speculation turned into arguments, and arguments turned into cries of distress as similar wails were heard from the decks. The ship lurched with an intensity that rolled some less balanced inmates over with a dangerous creaking of the wood hull. the oil lamp rocked in its little hook by the stairs, and with a perilous tilt of the hull, crashed to the ground.

The darkness was brief, before the lit wick touched the oil on the floor.

* * *

 

 

Gamiles struggled to hold onto the ropes more experienced sailors ordered him and his men to keep taut. In the dark of the night, the storm was an invisible beast that showed only in the brief flashes of lightening on the water. He couldn’t see the land that should have been on either side of them, never mind a lighthouse.

The wind threatened to knock him overboard had he not held on for dear life, as the beast of nature let out another roar of thunder. Several of the sailors began to shout over the dirge of the rain; was that Bravil they saw in the distance? Were they close to port? Gamiles braced himself for another gust, and the deck lifted up under his feet in a terrifying moment of near-weightlessness.

The sound of the ship running aground sounded like a dying animal, with the creaking and splintering of the hull. It was only the imperial-issued plate that saved Gamiles from the rocks they were dashed on. Ironic, really. He feared he would drown in it.

His rest was brief, as consciousness ebbed back into him between the cold and the rain. The first thing he saw was firelight; not a light from a lookout or a lamp, but an actual fire, that began to lick out of the wide open trapdoor to their imprisoned cargo. Several inmates where already escaping, in varying states of burnt or wet or both.

There was no time to decide on the morality of the issue - Gamiles staggered to his feet, and set to work as if his purpose was etched into his soul. From the broken holes in the hull, he grabbed the nearest bodies he could, whether dressed in rags or plate, and hoped that he was saving __somebody__.

 

 

The thunder of the storm outside was headache-inducing enough without the screams of the prisoners inside. At least it kept her awake, the sickly prisoner noted, as pain laced their dogged instinct for self preservation. Funny how you could look forward to death one moment, but run from it the next.

What prisoners there were who weren't struck dumb or dead in their cells from the initial lurch of the ship running aground were focused on themselves, predictably enough. The Nord, out cold from hitting his head on the cell bars, had become engulfed in flames before he could wake up. It was seeing __that__ which made the most vulnerable prisoner, for all their frailty and sickness, decide that perhaps they __wont__ die here. Somewhere else, maybe, but not here. The hole in the hull that speared that Argonian right through with its splinters would do better than the stairs, which were quickly turning into embers under escapee’s feet. Perhaps it was luck, for fate, for her to be able to weasel out the breach and into the arms of the only guard who bothered to go back for them.

 

In the near pitch black of the night, it wasn’t certain where they were just yet. Survivors clambered over moss-covered rocks and strange brush without a second thought, prisoner and guard and sailor alike. Gamiles served as an anchor for the starved prisoner, who clung to him with what little strength they had left. A more sprightly escapee had nicked a weapon from a body and ran a surviving guard through, perhaps for the catharsis of it all. Those who couldn’t walk, desperately dragged their bodies forward still. There was no goal, no promise of safety to head towards; but they could feel it, that nagging urge in the backs of their minds. That taunting from the dark forces that had watched their plight with glee. Lightening struck somewhere close in front of them. Too close, in fact. The area was lit up in that momentary flash, and everyone could plainly see a distorted face that greeted them on the island they had dashed themselves on.

The brilliant light, the pure power of the storm that brought them there, coursed through a crack in the enormous head before them. One of the face’s mouths, agape in a primal scream, poured forth a light that lingered. A portal, of sorts. A threefold set of eyes from a face split between despair, rage and mirth stared back at the survivors. Instead of thunder, they heard laughter from the heavens.

 

“What in god’s name is that?” Someone spoke up. Some just stood there, agape at the head, but more desperate folk still climbed towards it.

“Everybody stay together,” an officer Gamiles recognized from his shift warned them, “This… isn’t the mainland. This must have come up from the storm.”

“What kind of storm makes an island?” Gamiles spoke his mind aloud. Nobody seemed keen on trying to answer that.

Weapons were drawn on all sides, for some small feeling of protection. Guards who could still do their job did so by rounding up the handful of surviving prisoners. The bare couple of sailors that were on the ships crew argued over whether or not they knew an island would be there or not. Not many people wanted to acknowledge it head on; understandable, as one such prisoner took note. She was sat down with the few escapees they seemed to have left, watched over by a guard that shielded himself from the sight of the statue with a hand held to his face.

 

As the search for any other survivors became bleaker, it was one of the sailors that broke first. He ran into the mouth of the head like it would have a hot meal and a fireplace waiting for him. His mates called out for him, begged for him, and then finally, followed him. No amount of pleas or threats from the officer that had taken charge could stop them. Gamiles was dragging burnt bodies up out of the shallows when he heard commotion above him, and saw a guard he knew on the job for years break and enter as well. That was the last straw.

“If any of you even think of going in that portal, by the Nine you’ll wish the shipwreck had finished you off!”

The officer of the guard brandished his sword at dull, tired eyes and pathetically huddled forms. Behind him, another couple of free men were already wandering in. It didn’t matter, of course ; they were free. They had a choice.

One of the less burnt prisoners gave his peers a careful look, and flashed the blade of a knife in his rags to them. Murmurs of what to do next were covered by the reliable white noise of the rain. The prisoner from Bravil, who by all accounts shouldn’t have been alive, eyed it with the slightest hint of jealousy. Did he know how to use that? Did she, at this rate? Not that it mattered. You don’t need to know how to use a knife to hurt someone with it.

 

The officer was caught in the throat before he could bark more orders at his men on the shore. The knife-wielder left his only weapon in him like a parting gift, and made a break for it. Gamiles heard the initial gurgling shout; but by the time he turned his bulky, armored ass around, they were all gone. Well. One of them was still there; hobbling towards the head purposefully, though it looked like she may collapse at the slightest pickup of wind.

“You really don’t want to do that,” Gamiles took a shot in the dark to still be a shot, and tried bargaining. “We’re going to get out of here soon, the storm can’t last forever, you know.”

The prisoner, a skeleton in rags, didn’t look particularly majestic as the wind blew her hair out of her face dramatically. A gaunt and grim woman, aged by the ravages of imprisonment and starvation looked back at him. The light of the portal, so tantalizingly close, framed her in an eerie blue.

“Sorry, ser. I’d rather be dead indoors than dead in the rain.”

And with that, she was gone, and Gamiles realized he had been left alone.

* * *

 

The sounds of the weather outside turned to silence so suddenly it made her ears ring. The high pitched feedback in her head added to the feeling of disorientation and her bare, wet feet touched on dry stone. A soft ticking rhythm joined the throb of her head to create an irritable symphony, cutting through the fog of her mind. The echo told her she was in a closed room. It was dark at first, but then a candle was lit. As if it was waiting for her.

The only other person in the room put out the match they had used, and sat at one of two seats provided. It was strange, marble furniture; different from Imperial wood, almost regal if not weathered. The table between them was bare, save for the light and an elaborate metronome. The figure, an older man of some human descent, stood out from the stonework with a flamboyant suit of black and red, embroidered and ruffled in ways that an Altmer may find to be ‘too much’.

Definitely not someone from Bravil.

“Please,” he spoke with a monotone drawl, “Have a seat.”

You didn’t have to tell her twice, really. She practically collapsed into the chair. Her very presence, with all of its filth and sickness, made the man wince every so slightly in offense.

“It seems that several of you were waiting at the door, so to speak. Well, I expect many more of you, so let’s please get this out of the way.”

“What’s going on?” His guest asked, feebly. She was hunched over the table, head weakly lifted under the heavy mop of overgrown hair.

“Ah, yes. I suppose introductions are in order.” The man straightened the red frill of his collar, still giving his guest a scrutinizing eye. “I am Haskill, chamberlain to my Lord Sheogorath. You stand at the entrance to the Shivering Isles, realm of the Lord of Madness, Prince of the Never-There. You, like the rest of your… party, it seems, have wandered into our gate just as it was established. __Lucky you__.”

He waited for a response. The woman looked with wide eyes around the bare room, trying to make sense of her surroundings. This was an expected response, to be met with patience.

“So… did I die?”

Another expected response. “No, you are alive. We are merely in the liminal space between our two worlds. Your physical body will be intact upon entry as any other passerby may be.”

“But there was a shipwreck. There’s no way I survived that,” Her eyes got dark under her matted hair, no doubt recollecting a recent brush with mortality.

“Perhaps this really __is__ your lucky day,” the man who would be Haskill replied with no humor in his voice. “Beyond this room lies the Fringe, open to all who enter, and all who would stay until my Lord’s blessing takes hold. You are free to enter, but as it is the rule I must stress that this is __your choice__. You may return to Nirn, as is our contract, but once you enter we cannot take liability for what may happen to you.”

“My choice, huh?” His guest gave a more scrutinizing look around the room, as if looking for a trap of some sort. Tremors made her hands shake as she began pulling back her disgusting hair. The curtain revealed an mer of some undefined descent, gaunt and harrowed, worse than the ones he had filtered through previously. In the light, she had a sickly pallor to her grungy yellow skin. Bug bites, scars and bruises dotted her rail-thin arms.

“Haven’t had one of those in a long time.”

“So it seems,” Haskill sneered ever so slightly at her state, and seemed to quietly mourn the cleanliness of wherever she touched. “Go back to… whatever you were doing if you so wish, but __do__ make the decision quickly, I have duties to which I must attend.”

“Why are you doing all this?”

“That is not for me to decide,” Haskill sighed gently between his words. “The opening of this portal is Lord Sheogorath’s prerogative. He seeks any and all who would take up the role of his Champion. Not that you seem… fit for such a role. All who stay are not unwelcome, of course. Perhaps you may find our land pleasant. Perhaps, it may kill you. You are free to do as you please in the Isles, as your will is your own.”

The metronome kept a steady, empty pace between them, the engraved faces on it mocking the sharp contrast between the two. The mer seemed to flit in and out of an exhausted stupor as she struggled to absorb the strange man’s words.

“So I can just… go in?”

“Yes.”

“And just… have a __life__?”

“In theory, yes.”

“ _ _Free__?”

“Let me put it this way,” Haskill eyed the marks left by shackles on her wrists, in a detached sort of manner. “There are no prisons in the Isles. No institutions, no people who are allowed to take your freedom from you for an extended period of time. You are not the first of people freed by this choice, nor will you be the last.”

“Awful nice of him then, innit?” The mer stretched their withered bones feebly, feeling the soreness of exhaustion burn from disturbing them.

“I guess I’m too half past dead to have a choice. I can either die out there from the coppers, or die free. I’d like to choose dyin’ free, if you’d have me.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve chosen to die on our lands so readily, how truly flattering.” Haskill rolled his eyes, passing it off as looking under the table. He withdrew a stack of parchment from apparent nothingness, and dipped a quill in ink that wasn’t on the table a moment before.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”

The mer watched him bring the quill to the paper suspiciously. By the time he finished writing the era date down, he caught her staring, brow knitted in tense concentration. She quietly mouthed the numbers to herself, processing them, and froze.

“Four hundred n’ thirty-three?? Its really been that long?”

“Pardon?”

“I’ve been in there for…” she paused to count on her bony fingers, eyes going wide. “…Twenny-five __fucking__ years!?”

Haskill merely gave her an impatient look. “I see. I suppose I should put your trade down as ‘professional level convict’, then?”

“Trade?”

“There are those whose skills are high in demand in the settled parts of the Isles. It would be helpful for all of us if you would cooperate with this part; we __rarely__ get visitors in such abundance.”

“Well.” She continued to eye his note taking with skepticism, and a hint of distaste. “I wasn’t always a dungeon rat. Put me down as a, ah… well I suppose it don’t matter if I’m a ne’er-do-well, ain’t it?”

“Please, by all means, specify __‘never-do-well’__.”

The mer blew a tangle of hair out of her face, reddened eyes looking up ponderingly at the ceiling. “Smuggler, pusher, bagman, highwayman… murderer….”

“Ah, but of course. I think I __will__ put this down as ‘never-do-well’, actually. We will also need a name, of course.”

“’S not important.”

“We already have a Mr. Not Important in our census, and I’m sure he’d be very upset if there was any confusion. Please, do try again.”

“...I really ain’t about to tell you that.”

“Very well,” Haskill sighed a bit louder and with less subtle resentment, putting his quill down. “We have a process for those who do not have certain information on hand.”

The mer flinched when Haskill reached into the uncertain space under the table, and pulled a different type of quill out. It was the thick, glossy plume of a peacock, so weighty in its own opulence that it sagged and waggled as he put the tip to the papers. He whispered something softly to it.

The quill jerked from his limply held hand, alive, doing a few bold scratches before promptly setting itself back in his grasp. Haskill read the answer with no apparent hint that he cared for it.

“Your name is Atlanta now. Congratulations on your new personhood.”

“... What?”

“Entrants to the realm who are without, for any uniform reason, a sense of identity, are given the option of a new name with which to live by. Chosen by our Lord, of course. Be lucky he didn’t make you another ‘Patrick Mac Rotch’, and take it.”

He pushed the papers toward her. A moment passed as she read the word, carefully, as if picking apart each individual letter.

“A- __At__ … lo - no, __lan__? At, lan….”

“ _ _Atlanta__.” Haskill repeated in somber clarity. The Atlanta in question frowned at how he insisted on watching her struggle.

“ ’M not much of a reader, ser.”

Haskill cocked an unimpressed eyebrow at her. “Of course you’re not.”

“Fuck off n’ let me in already then,” Atlanta spat at him right back, “I just decided I’m dyin’ on your carpet, specifically.”

“How very specific.” Haskill exchanged a similarly offended grimace with his guest. He quickly jotted down less specific information, things like her race, and the number her arrival corresponded with in this strange sort of welcome center at the end of the universe.

“...Oh, and do mind the Gatekeeper, he’s quite suspicious of newcomers. ” The well-dressed man added, with just the smallest uptick of humor to his voice. Haskill stood from his chair, but Atlanta found herself strangely glued to the seat. It was probably more exhaustion than dark magics at this rate. A door in the corner appeared, predictably, as he walked towards the far end of the room.

“Enjoy your stay.”

The door seemed to disintegrate in his hand as he still went through the motions of opening it, giving way to an outpour of blinding light. Atlanta squinted her eyes shut against the pain and the bright pink of her eyelids, feeling a cool breeze blow past her along with the thunder of a thousand tiny wings. Hundreds of butterflies flew past her, pouring out of the brick and mortar - no, they __were__ the brick and mortar. The whole of the room flew away, piece by piece, and before she knew it, she was outside.

For the first time in twenty-five years, she was outside.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for slight depictions of gore. guess Whomst

Nanette Don shook the sounds out of her head passively as she went about her daily chores. Hang up the wash, scrub the floors, make dinner, bring a plate to her mistress…. she wouldn’t let them get her here. She knew how to distract herself. Socialization was a method she clung to; it helped her in her old life, and now it helped her acclimate to Passwall. She was more than used to the routine she carved out inside the walls.

Her insular daily life was largely effected by the sudden boom of visitors to Passwall. Some people from a shipwreck had begun to get their bearings in the Fringe, some less readily than others. Gibberers, Rockers, all manner of afflictions that the Fringe just seemed to… do. Her mentor explained this behavior once before; those who are not __meant__ to be here, are quickly ‘fixed’ to compensate. Sometimes they recover as relatively functional citizens, after recollecting themselves. Sometimes.

The Wastrel’s Purse, a rickety composite of the only general store and the only inn, was always the lifeblood of Passwall. Today it truly showed that, full to the brim for the first time in years with tourists. The noise of the busy dining room was loud enough to drown out the hoarse sobbing in Nanette’s inner ears, and that wasn’t a good sign. Her mistress was probably __furious__.

Upstairs, at the end of the hall, a more familiar muffled screaming put Nanette at ease. She knew exactly what her mentor was doing. The room at the very end was locked with a blunt ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign in handwriting; better suited to a writer, perhaps. She could already hear soft mumbles from inside, in between pleas sobbed from behind a gag. Mistress Verenim was hard at work, of course. It wouldn’t be wise to intervene. Unfortunately, Nanette was not particularly wise.

The screams from inside reached a more desperate pitch when Nanette began rapping on the door. Or were those coming from inside, or outside? A laugh from behind her made her spin around towards nothing, and caught her off guard when Relmyna Verenim answered.

“ _ _What__ , Nanette.” Relmyna had a frustrated, tired tone to her voice, as she usually had with her apprentice. Nanette spun back around with a startled gasp.

“Hello, mistress!!” She did a shaky little curtsy to save face, not impressing Relmyna in the least. “Just popping by to see if you need any uh. Disposables I can take out for you.”

“Hmph.” Relmyna backed up to let her inside without a further word. Her room was even more cramped than usual with the extra… guests she had invited in. Mostly dead; probably some of the newcomers that she lead up there. Nanette remembered what she said about the tourists who were struck dumb by the shock of their Lord’s power. People who didn’t belong here, being punished by their own unmindfulness. Relmyna said before that she liked the slow flow of fresh, easy to handle meat from the Fringe.

Two bodies had already been mutilated beyond recognition, and hopefully were already dead. The alive one was on the crummy little bed, tied to the bedposts, already open to the world in what Nanette was taught was an autopsy incision. Relmyna stepped daintily around the body parts, letting the hem of her dress soak in the blood on the floor.

“You can take the cut parts, I have no use for them. I’m keeping this one alive for a bit, then I’ll bag him tomorrow to take back to the lab.”

“This all seems rather wasteful, don’t you think?”

“My research doesn’t need __uninspired__ blood,” Relmyna scoffed, “Though I do find sane flesh to have a nostalgic air to it. There are more tourists than usual lately, aren’t there?”

“Oh, yeah!” Nanette lit up at the prospect of gossip. “The gate they were talking about opened up last night. Apparently a ship crashed right into it! Dredwhen is absolutely __swamped__ downstairs, and I’m sure your boy is quite busy too!”

“Ah, my son,” Relmyna took on a softer, almost dreamy look, staring distantly into her own memories with a smile. “I look forward to seeing what lovely mess he made today.”

Nanette smiled even broader in turn. “Maybe one day you can introduce me! Well, in a way that he doesn’t try to crush me to death.”

“You’re just not ready yet,” Relmyna replied, somberly. She returned to her latest subject, savoring the whimpers he made as she gently traced her fingertips along his bare organs. “Your blessing is still in early bloom. Soon, though, I will take you back with me and we will begin work again in earnest.”

“But I’ve __always__ heard voices, mistress….”

“A man could be in an asylum for years and still not be ready to enter the Isles proper. It’s not about the affliction they hold, its about the temperament of their minds. The trust our Lord puts in __you__ , to be a citizen and an asset, rather than some… adventurer. Some fortune-seeker set to disrupt the quality of life Sheogorath has provided us.” Relmyna’s lip curled in a snarl as she concluded.

Her disdain wasn’t rare in the Isles, Nanette noticed. The Breton’s posture became more submissive as she nodded to her superior. “You’re right, mistress.”

Relmyna took notes on whatever current research she was doing, as Nanette began to busy herself with taking out the gory trash. She had gotten used to this in the last few months. At first, Relmyna’s macabre lifestyle and dark heart shocked her, but over time she had gotten accustomed to blood on her hands. Well, accustomed to it wasn’t quite the same as __enjoying__ it. She wasn’t here for the love of meat and pain like her mentor. Sometimes she felt like the ever-present gore turned the voices she heard into tortured screams. The weight of the deaths Relmyna took in stride had in turn lost Nanette a lot of sleep.

Of course, it would be absolutely worth it. Some day.

* * *

 

 

Disposing of the waste of Relmyna’s research often involved feeding it to the local wildlife. The marshier areas of Passwall gave way to a shallow lake that held baliwogs; native, amphibious pests that had grown fat from offerings of meat like these. It was a mutual arrangement, considering they were regularly slaughtered for their own meat. Nanette stood at the foot of one of many ruins at the lake’s edge, and held a heavy, dripping sack over water that began to stir.

“C’mon little ones, it’s time for dindins!” She trilled for them like she was feeding chickens. A few hideous, grimacing faces bobbed around the surface of the water, the frogs croaking eagerly for a free meal. They were horrible little beasts, but they were small… and strangely delicious.

Nanette watched blood cloud the thrashing water. Chunks of flesh splashed heavily into the feeding frenzy. The frogs would strip the bones dry in hours, and they’d just be another fixture at the bottom of the lake, by the end of the day. Nanette tried not to think of whether that eaten meat had a name, once. A background, a life on the other side of the portal. Did Relmyna ever think of those? As an apprentice sorceress, she figured she was supposed to have some amount of detachment regardless, after all.

The fat little frog creatures picked at the gore with less ferocity as they started to get their fill. Nanette watched some of them start to awkwardly swim away on their own business, distracted. It didn’t hit her all at once that they were headed towards something. She saw ripples from further down the shore begin to lap around them, leading her eye. Surely nobody was trying to __swim__ in these nasty waters - with or without the baliwogs….

Some hunched over figure drank water from the very edge of the shoreline, practically shoving their face in it as they did. They seemed quite distracted, and didn’t seem to notice the frogs headed their way until it was too late.

When one of the ugly little things tried halfheartedly snapping at their hair, the figure sprang back in a flurry of rags and gangly limbs, kicking desperately at the grimacing bald heads coming at them. The frogs had caught them prone, and Nanette’s instincts kicked in.

Nanette feebly shouted “g _ _et away from the water!”__ , clumsily jumping down from a crumbling ledge. Running towards them was difficult in her long Dementia finery, but she didn’t need to be too close to use her talents. Flinging a shock bolt at the water was all it took to fry the frogs in the shallows. One that had closed the gap between them latched onto the stranger’s leg, but not for more than a nibble as their victim began to bash their head in with a rock.

Fresh blood trickled from the silt of the shore in rivulets, clouding the fouled water. The frogs in the water floated lifelessly, electrocuted. The stranger hissed at the bites on their thin ankle, when the dust had settled and their attacker seemed suitably dead.

It wasn’t a bad wound. Nanette was more worried about the emaciated state of the individual, dressed in tatters like a lot of the newcomers had been. Another prisoner. She swirled magicka around her fingers in preparation for a spell.

“Hold on, I’ve got you,” she touched the healing spell to their bite. The stranger groaned again as the flesh was forcibly reformed.

“Sorry,” Nanette felt like she should apologize. “I wasn’t exactly taught healer’s restoration.”

“’S’fine, miss,” croaked the tourist. “I ‘ppreciate it.”

Nanette watched them get to their feet; their rickety, skinny legs shaking. Their clothes were tattered sackcloth, unwashed and damp, hanging loosely on their skeleton. Despite their state, the hollow-cheeked mer gave them a polite, if strained, smile.

“Y’ would’na happen to know where t’get a bite to eat, wouldjya?”

Nanette clocked their accent as a Central-Nibenean drawl. She hadn’t heard one of those in quite some time. “Oh! Passwall’s just down the road there; I can get you something to eat just fine.”

“Greatly appreciated, ma’am,” The stranger replied in a cordial tone. They swayed on their feet, and seemed to be spending most of their energy towards staying upright.

“You alright there, dear?”

“Aye,” They replied breathlessly, their feet doing a desperate little dance to keep their balance before they crumpled in a sad little heap of rags. Nanette winced in sympathy, but tried to keep positive. A quick check of the pulse confirmed the hapless tourist didn’t just drop dead on the spot.

With the pathetic state of the recent influx of supplicants, this mer’s frailty wasn’t surprising. Unfortunate, but unsurprising. Of course, she couldn’t just… leave them here. Not when so many died already. Not every tourist was an instant lost cause, right?

… Right?

* * *

 

Atlanta woke, thinking it finally happened. At last, the sweet embrace of death engulfed her at the last second, at the very cusp of a miraculous freedom. Because of course it would do that. Fate wasn’t going to play any more tricks on her, she was wise to it now.

The bare-timber interior of the room she was in reminded her of Bravil’s houses. The unadorned, rather ugly walls of a den she may have crashed and burnt in more than a few times, herself. As feeling began to seep back into her body and the weight of Vaermina’s specter lifted from her chest, she started to recognize that she was probably alive. Unfortunately. Atlanta looked at her own withered arms with a resigned sort of dismay. The kind that came from knowing you’re wasting away. The feel of your own skeleton strung up by flesh and sinew.

Her reflexes and grip on her surroundings were so shot that she barely reacted as a familiar human girl sashayed her way into the compact room she was held in. She wore a fancy, if very old-looking, full gown like one would see at a Count’s ball; with her hair done up in a Highrock bun, wrapped in a net. A fancy young lady, for such a grubby place.

The woman had a glass that she carefully helped Atlanta bend forward to drink from. She relished the drink, even if it had an uncomfortably metallic taste that almost reminded her of -

“...Blood?” Atlanta rasped with mild revulsion. The woman grimaced in sympathy.

“Sorry darling, but this was what Re- __my mistress__ recommended. You need to get something in that sunken belly of yours!”

“Yeah I do.” Atlanta pulled a sour face. “So give me, I dunno, food?”

“Nnnnot quite,” The girl had a strained look to her smile; She seemed kind, but bothered. The dark circles under her eyes were especially visible in this light. “My mistress is a healer and she told me you should start small! Something about your body getting a shock from going from nothing to eat, to too much!”

“Well.” Atlanta leaned forward and took a more cautious, uncomfortable sip. “I ‘unno much about a healer’s trade to know if that’s bullshit or not.”

“Relmyna is the very best sorceress and Restoration expert in the Isles, I’ll have you know! If there’s anything she knows, its… the art of suffering. So surely she knows how to ease it, as well.” The girl gave a proud, self-assuring nod at her own words.

Atlanta stifled a gag, even through she already felt some bare sense of contentment, as though her body was thanking her for those scant mouthfuls. She took another, more desperate drink, before her nurse brought it out of her reach.

“Not too much at once, now. I’ll give you more in a couple hours.”

“And when am I gonna eat a real damn meal again?”

“I’ll have to ask her.”

The infirm mer huffed audibly, and let their frail body flop limply backwards into their pillows. A real bed was a welcome change, at least. All things considered, this was probably better than being put out of her misery.

 

Atlanta watched her nurse maneuver daintily around the tiny room, ducking out here and there; coming back with things like clothes, water, a clean bedpan. The question of why this Breton girl had taken her in still hung heavily in the back of her throat, but she was too fatigued to take the effort of asking questions. When her eyes fluttered closed, it felt like days would pass in each moment of peaceful rest. Before she knew it, it was time for another ‘feeding’, which she stomached if not for the gratefulness of her aching gut.

The Breton dabbed a cloth to her charge’s lips as Atlanta gathered the words necessary to ask, “So who’re you?”

“Nanette Don,” The girl smiled, “and you?”

“Atlanta,” Nanette’s patient rasped in a careful tone, as though they still had to commit those syllables to memory. That wasn’t a strange thing in the Isles, really; people lose or find themselves all the time. Especially in the Fringe.

The portion of this meal was still not quite enough, but Atlanta hardly protested now; eyes cloudy and unfocused as she went back to resting her sickly bones. Before she closed her eyes once more, the fuzzy peripherals of her vision saw the door open.

A deeper voice, worn with age and dripping with contempt made Nanette jump out of her skin long after the speaker made their presence known. “So what is __this__ , a pet project of yours? Some new distraction from your studies?”

Atlanta opened her eyes just a little bit more, curious but still apathetic from her fatigue. Nanette bowed to the intruder, inadvertently putting her charge and superior in full view of each other.

Relmyna sneered at the infirm supplicant that was taking up space in the room. So __that’s__ what that smell was, as well as why Nanette was pestering her for healer’s advice. Her apprentice in question immediately straightened up, trying to look as stern as she could.

“Now, mistress, I know what you’re thinking; I know you don’t think highly of all these tourists but I think they at least deserve a fighting chance!”

Relmyna gave the supine Atlanta __a look__ , and it struck the bedridden mer to her core; stealing all the breath she had along with a few more years of her life, or so she’d swear. The so-called ‘tourist’ broke away from the eye contact, pale as the grave, regretting every moment spent in this bed all over again.

Nanette still kept her cool, almost defiant as she stood up straight against her mentor. Relmyna seemed to study the scene for a moment; both making up her mind and adding to the tension.

“Add milk to its meals when it starts perking up a bit,” Relmyna advised with a sigh under her breath, “If they can still swallow by next week start bringing them soups. If you’re going to do this, I trust you wont waste my time or my efforts.”

“Yes ma’am!” Nanette’s voice broke as she hastily bowed her head again. Relmyna just gave her a dismissive little cock of her head, jaw set in a still disapproving look. Atlanta felt the heat rise in her once bloodless face as the Dunmer turned her attention towards her again.

“You’re a Bosmer, right? I can’t tell under all that… filth.”

“...Half-n’-half.” Atlanta’s voice sounded more like a death rattle than usual. Perhaps she was finally dying, this time from embarrassment.

Relmyna just gave a singular, confirming nod, and addressed her apprentice again. “Make sure meat is at least three quarters of its diet.”

Nanette nodded emphatically, taking all this advice at heart. From the final look her mentor gave her charge as she took her leave, Atlanta was left to wonder just what This Breton lass even got out of her apprenticeship. When the dust had settled and they were alone again, Nanette seemed to visibly deflate.

“Oh my Lord, I think I saw my life flash before my eyes.”

Atlanta chuckled hoarsely, and watched the flustered young woman take a seat at the foot of the bed.

“Nanette,”

Like a puppy, her eyes lit up at her own name. “Yes?”

The bedridden mer settled down deeper into their covers, past the threshold of comfort until their voice was muffled behind linen.

“If I ever have t’look like __this__ in front of a woman lookin’ like __that__ again, please just kill me.”


	3. Chapter 3

Recovery was always an uphill climb, Atlanta knew, but she had hoped she’d start at least feeling better, not worse.

The moons, whether they were the moons one saw on Nirn, went through a full cycle as she rested. The disgusting soups and slurries she was fed slowly transitioned into solid foods; only to find her teeth too rotten to eat a lot of the tougher dishes given to her. Nanette didn’t give up though, not by a longshot. She payed regular traders extra to bring in soft and delicious fruits from the northern part of the realm. Mania, it was called. Atlanta saw pictures on the walls of the inn, portraying rolling hills of brightly colored mushroom forests and sparkling beaches. Part of the paradise everyone within the walls was waiting for.

Tourists still came in at a steady pace, and left in a gradual trickle, mostly to their deaths. It was a pastime of sorts to watch this ‘Gatekeeper’ at work; that massive, terrifying golem of rune-etched flesh. A hulk held together by metal and magically contained purpose. The citizens of Passwall cheered when someone new thought they could approach it unharmed, only to either flee its wrath or be killed in the process. How did it know who was worthy or not? How did one know if _you_ were worthy or not? It seemed to be something that sorceress, Relmyna, knew. Of course, Atlanta would have preferred to go the rest of her life without having to confront her again. Once was more than enough. Even as the brief memory of the woman’s face started to fade and skew, and leave her even more curious in the end.

Plenty distracted her from the rather frightening neighbor she had in the inn, at least. The first bath in who-knows-how-long was certainly an event; though not a pleasant one. Looking at her famished body in the mirror, easily bruised and beset by bugbites and disease, she wondered again if she really died that night in the shipwreck. A good scrub out back with the well pump restored some of the color to her skin. A pair of shears freed her from the heavy, matted mess on her head. She had to bargain with Nanette to cut it; the prim and proper young lady couldn’t fathom chopping all of one’s hair off. Atlanta saw it as a burden she didn’t need. No amount of washing was going to bring it back to its original luster, if it ever had any. Scrubbed clean, freshly shaven and eating real meals, all Atlanta was waiting on now was for her own strength to return.

The fatigue never really got better. As Atlanta tried to make herself useful, it reared its ugly head more and more. Exercising left her a sore and exhausted mess the day after. Trying to ‘take it easy’ just made her antsy. That, and the ever-present feeling of anxiousness this place had, full of people wanting nothing more than to leave. People trapped in here by that monstrous Gatekeeper, and the will of the god they supposedly worshiped. That Prince, whom Atlanta saw the presence of in commonplace busts, engravings on doors and walls, and in the greetings from people in passing. Perhaps, that was the man who saved her life.

-

Nanette had twice the life in her that Atlanta did, and it showed. The little Breton was hardly muscular herself, but she had no issue in hauling water or firewood inside as Atlanta carried what she could. Her recovery was a slow and arduous process, so she set goals for herself at Nanette’s behest. A bucket half full one day would eventually be full in the future, and so on and so forth.

Nanette was proud of her ‘work’ in nursing Atlanta back to health. Her absent benefactor responsible for most of it seemed indifferent. Atlanta would crane her neck for a glimpse of the reclusive sorceress, occasionally from scant moments where Nanette had entered Relmyna’s room. She could always smell the stench of blood and rot that room permeated, especially when trying to sleep next door. Despite this, Nanette and the innkeeper bade her to leave the long-term guest alone.

Atlanta had no reason to bother her. Minding the storefront for the innkeeper, Dredwhen, kept her busy; despite having to skip over some more complicated written words, and having to count money piece by piece. She couldn’t keep up with Nanette, who could read and write at a young age and thus couldn’t imagine not knowing how. Asking her for assistance was as humiliating as being forcefed soup like an infant. Grasping for dignity motivated her to learn more by herself. She had plenty of opportunities in her new job, since trade from the inn and between newcomers and traders from outside was about the only thing keeping Passwall together.

It was strange, seeing traveling traders walk through the cavernous threshold and past the Gatekeeper unscathed. One day marked the arrival of some scavengers from Dementia, the southern swamplands. They dressed in gloomy rags and dark armor made from the native substance called ‘madness ore’, in place of Nirn steel. Ore and metal alloy from Nirn was a scarcity; regular iron plate and weaponry circulated like currency. Scavenger parties were in turn traveling traders here, it seemed. The demand of metal for recycling and the bodycount the gatekeeper seemed to rack up was the true main export of Passwall in the Isles. Everything new passed through here, and everything unworthy stopped at the Gates.

Atlanta watched the small convoy pass through the Gatekeeper’s courtyard without issue, from the safety of the stairs. As instructed, she hailed the man who seemed the best dressed.

“Y’all scavs? We got plate ready for a smith who got an order in the city.”

“Yep,” The man, in his moldering brocade vest that once looked noble, gave Atlanta a cursory look. “You’re new. You staying for a bit, or will you be coming back with us?”

“Coming back?”

“Why do you think this place is a ghost town? Everyone who feels the call to come inside usually leaves shortly after that. Except the __real__ nutters like Shelden.” A couple of chuckles were shared by the rest of the caravan.

Atlanta gave a glance towards the Gatekeeper behind them, meandering in a ceaseless patrol of the gates as always. The trader hitched their backpack up their shoulders and began going on their way.

“’S no problem if you can’t, of course. We’ve tried smuggling some unopened minds in before; it didn’t end well, as you can imagine.”

“I just dunno what it means to be ready to cross those gates.”

“Do any of us?” Another scav with skin darker than any Dunmer piped up, following her party to the town proper. Atlanta had seen people like her from the other side before; they weren’t man nor mer, with the unnatural blue of their eyes and the webbing between their fingers.

People from the other side of the wall were often met with open arms. They were the connection to the realm proper, the proof that there was indeed something to go through the gates for. The inn, now much less crowded than the first few days of housing the shipwreck survivors weeks ago, appreciated the service. Staples like flour, salt, fruits and vegetables that didn’t grow in the marsh and newspapers from the titular city of the Isles were all passed around. In turn, the traders began refilling their cart with fresh leather and steel.

 

Atlanta counted out the gold coins stamped with Sheogorath’s wild grin, in exchange for a paper she knew she could only half-read. Nanette helped her, if somewhat patronizingly, as they took their own little corner table together. Nanette was an odd, but nice girl; too rich for Atlanta’s blood, as she recalled a life of minor nobility in Daggerfall. Mostly grim stories of receiving her education at a fancy preparatory school for girls. The jokes Atlanta made about those places flew over her head, of course. The sounds that came from inside Nanette’s mind distracted her and made her come off as somewhat flaky, and it also ruined her grades. At its peak, it made her parents start to consider sending her to be institutionalized. ‘For her own good’, as it always was. As they read about the goings-on in New Sheoth together, Nanette liked to point out that it didn’t have any ‘hospitals’, or schools that taught girls how to act like women. No prisons.

“I’d like to see that museum they have in Crucible, it sounds quite interesting.” Nanette traced a finger along an advertisement for a ‘Museum of Oddities’. Atlanta saw the ever-present iconography of Sheogorath’s visage before she parsed the printed words. There were so many ways they depicted him, but it was all perfectly recognizable, completely commonplace.

Nanette caught onto Atlanta’s stare, for the wrong reasons. “Do you have any place you’d like to see in the city?”

“Uh,” Cities as a concept brought a bitter feeling to Atlanta’s weak stomach. Nanette came from one that probably __did__ have things like ‘museums’. “I’d like to see that there Palace, I guess.”

She pointed to the header of the first page; the illustration of a sprawling castle divided down the middle. Old and overgrown with creeping vines on one side, opulent and marble-white on the other.

“Never got to see a palace before. ‘Specially not of any god’s.”

“Maybe they do tours, but I doubt they do such a thing,” Nanette pondered, her delicately trimmed brow wrinkled grimly. “Relmyna has tried to get into the Palace before when- oh, but I shouldn’t run my mouth again. All I know is that its very hard and… __risky__ , trying to get that close to Sheogorath.”

This wasn’t the first time Nanette almost gossiped about her mentor. If it was anyone else, Atlanta would care less, but….

“Wait, w-what did Relmyna do?”

Nanette seemed hesitant to talk about it, even if her love for talking overrode things like ‘embarrassment’ and ‘common sense’. She flushed pink, looking over her shoulder as if the sorceress in question might strike her down right there.

“Oh, well its something that happened before I met her, I think; something about her ah, private affairs. You didn’t hear it from me but, she and Lord Sheogorath had __a thing__ back in the day. You know what I mean?”

Atlanta grimaced ever so slightly, but not subtly enough for Nanette to skim right over it. The Breton’s face split into a wicked grin.

“ _ _Soooo__ , why do you want to know __that__?”

Ruining all chance at gracefully deflecting the question, Atlanta crossed her arms defensively, trying to straighten out and square her bony shoulders out of subconscious posturing.

“Why d’ya __think__? I thought y’went to an all-girl’s school, for Nine’s sake.”

“Well __excuse__ me! I just thought you’d fancy someone a little less… her. Honestly.”

The grin Nanette had shrank, and a more serious look lit up her eyes as something unpleasant seemed to come to mind for her. “You know, I’m serious when I say it: stay away from her. Just… leave her alone, and let her do her business here.”

“I wasn’t going to __do__ anything, Nan’; I do just fine admirin’ someone from a distance.”

“I’m just saying. Even that may be too close for comfort.” Nanette’s shoulders slumped. “She’s not… a people person. And I guarantee the only person she’d mind making eyes at her is Lord Sheogorath.”

“Figures.” Atlanta slumped back in her seat herself. Of course it would be him. Of course it would be her.

Nanette gave her a sympathetic little smile, one of those reserved for things one didn’t really quite ‘get’. Atlanta, frankly, saw that a lot. Even more-so around this girl.

 

As the traders stayed the night and spent their coin on Dredwhen’s meager stock of drinks, Atlanta had evening bar duty. It wasn’t often that there were multiple people to serve at once, really. It didn’t help that all the food and drink available was native and unfamiliar to an easily overwhelmed Atlanta, who tried and failed to keep an awkwardly written tab on orders. The innkeeper was worse, in that she too had her fatigue issues from something she called ‘narcolepsy’. At least Atlanta didn’t fall asleep at a boiling pot.

Other than a few close calls with untended stoves and some confusion between drink orders, things went smoothly. Of course she would start thinking that, as soon as she noticed someone sidling up to the bar.

She was one of the scavs that had unfamiliar features; a woman who’s skin looked like an intensely dark purple in the light. Atlanta fumbled a glass of wine as she found herself distracted by a pair of unnaturally blue eyes, and a sly smile that revealed the slightest glimpse of fangs. The woman pointed a webbed finger at one of the bottles behind the serving mer.

“A glass of Roofwater, please.”

It was an awkward rush to pass on several other orders before personally attending to hers. It didn’t come off particularly subtly, Atlanta inwardly chided herself, but the customer seemed patient. A glass of dark alcohol (which Atlanta swore she could see bits of leaf matter in) was pushed in the strange woman’s direction.

Atlanta tried her best to come off as suave. She really did. “’S not often someone willingly comes here for a drink.”

The woman chuckled softly into the rim of her glass. “At least you don’t cough into them like Bernice does, back in Crucible.”

“Ah… what’s Crucible like, by-the-by?”

Atlanta blinked in surprise as she watched the woman tilt back the whole glass in one go before replying, “it’s wet, muddy, filthy as hell. Stinks, too… Lord, I miss it.”

Atlanta watched the light reflect off of subtle scales on her skin, in greens and blues that gave her a slightly iridescent look in some angles. The woman, of course, caught her staring.

“Not used to seeing one of us off-duty, hmm?”

She laughed when Atlanta flinched, and merely pushed her empty glass towards her.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t been part of a patrol in hundreds of years. I’m a civilian now.”

“Patrol of what?”

She gave the mer a confused look, before shrugging it off. “I guess you supplicants wouldn’t see us on this side of the wall. I’m a Mazken… a Dark Seducer, if you will. Name’s Udico.”

At least one of those words made sense to her server. Udico extended an inhuman hand for Atlanta to tentatively take. “A __Daedra__ ….”

“Yeah.” Udico replied with the flat tone of someone all too used to this reaction. “Its still a novelty outside of the city, I guess. Everyone thinks we live and die in full armor, patrolling the swamps or standing around looking grim. At the end of the day, a lot of us just have regular lives in between patrol stints and assignments.”

Atlanta could feel how much of an asshole she was for staring now, and opted to try to avert her eyes as much as possible. “Ah, well, didn’t mean to pry, ma’am.”

The apparent Mazken still chuckled as Atlanta poured more of that swill into her glass. “I’ve had worse. If I had a coin for every time someone brought up the ‘Seducer’ thing, I would’ve retired by now.”

She tipped back her drink with the same gusto as before, and opted in for another one. After the third, Atlanta just handed her the rest of the bottle. Around them, the inn was quieting down as the evening progressed, and the other scavs began to retire for the night. A couple of them approached Udico for a final goodnight, a clap on the back, and to Atlanta’s quiet dismay, a few kisses on the cheek.

It didn’t take long for it to be mostly Atlanta and her guest in the room. Udico pointed her bottle towards her server, slurring her words slightly. “I noticed you’re new, tourist. You stayin’ long or just waiting to bloom?”

“Both, I guess.” Atlanta leaned heavily on the counter, her sore bones demanding to find a place to sit.

“I hear you all itch to get out so bad, you fling yourselves at the Gatekeeper no matter what, eventually.”

“I feel trapped in here, if I’ll be honest,” Atlanta admitted, after some consideration. “I’m startin’ to feel like this is just another prison.”

She didn’t want to have to dwell on it, but it was always there. That claustrophobia. That feeling of powerlessness. At least on the boat she knew she was only surrounded by ocean.

The Daedra made a sour face at that. “I’d watch my mouth if I were you. This is our Lord’s realm. __You__ just live in it.”

“You’re right, this ain’t a prison. I’ve __been__ in a prison.” Atlanta’s hackles rose. “This would be the yard they let you out into, to make you feel like you got freedom still.”

The Mazken’s pupils dilated into large, dark pools in the eerie light of her irises, like a cat provoked into arching up.

“I don’t need to be wearing a __kiszkas__  to strike down your ungrateful ass in the name of our faith, mortal; and you don’t __really__ look like you need to be picking any fights.”

Dammit.

“I think you’ve had enough, miss.” Atlanta tried to be the bigger mer this time, if only because she certainly wasn’t physically. She reached for the open bottle carefully, but her customer was predictably quicker, a hand closing around her thin wrist easily.

“You won’t survive out there, few of you ever do.” Udico squeezed Atlanta’s forearm in a threatening, but harmless manner. “At least in __here__ you’re in a place that’s idiot-proofed for people just like you.”

Atlanta was already sizing up her situation. She knew there were knives at the bar, but her free hand couldn’t feel anything within reach. A pig by any other color is still a pig, whether its Imperial, or… whatever this one was.

Udico’s supernaturally strong grip was starting to leave bruises on Atlanta’s meatless wrist, as the mer’s desperate rummaging under the counter finally found some sort of handle. She wasn’t about to question the hilt being pushed into her hand; only how quickly she could bring it to that Daedra’s (admittedly, beautiful,) face.

Turns out, pretty fast.

Atlanta sliced upwards, blade just grazing Udico’s chin before she could fall backward out of her seat. The Mazken landed on her back heavily for all but a second before she righted herself in a single, fluid movement; her sluggishness from the drink belying whatever impressive, immortal strength she held. At least, Atlanta hoped, she was drunk enough to even the playing field.

Atlanta used the space the bar drove between them to her advantage as her assailant lunged back with a few angry strikes. The Daedric blade looked like chipped flint, as long as a dagger and shaped into a more sophisticated sword than what Atlanta knew of stone weapons. It was around then that Atlanta could see she was utterly in over her head.

It was ironic that, when Atlanta nearly dived to dodge a bleeding, enraged Daedra, she would collide face-first into a bust of Sheogorath. She had stubbed her toe on it more than a few times while working here, but now it seemed to be finally finishing the job.

 

For a moment, everything was dark, peaceful, and more or less worry-free. She could get used to this, honestly. Of course, like with all good lapses of consciousness, you had to come back sometime. It was the throbbing in her head that brought her back to reality first; then the rest of her pain followed suit. From somewhere hovering above her, she heard a quiet, vaguely familiar voice.

“Alright, that’s enough of this nonsense.”

Chunks of broken statue had dug into her hands, and embedded themselves her face. Behind her, Udico seemed to be taking her sweet time in killing her. Someone was slowly walking down the stairs; she could feel the vibrations rattle up her prone body with each step. Painfully, Atlanta lifted her head out of the fresh stone rubble, and saw a specter of death approach her.

The Dunmer woman did not wear a red dress, but rather a dress that had become unevenly dyed by countless bloodstains. The hem streaked red along the steps, soaked through with dark, dried blood and wet with blood that was apparently fresh. In her apron and gloves, she looked like a butcher. In the way she carried herself, she may as well been royalty.

Atlanta could only tear her eyes away from her when her attacker dropped everything with a clatter, and fled. No words, no hesitation. Atlanta didn’t need context to understand; she wished __she__ was in a state to be doing any running. For the moment, all she could do was weakly, painfully lift herself up off of the broken statue.

It was a miracle she hadn’t broken her neck or split her skull; streaks of blood gushed heavily from her wounds, tainting the desecrated statue further. At the final step, close enough that Atlanta could see the faded pattern of her dress, a beautiful and terrifying face looked down at __her__.

She scoffed at the pile of broken garbage blocking her way, as any queen would. “You owe me a fresh Mazken body, you know.”

Atlanta tried to keep her head up, dizzy from the pain. Its not like she would have been able to reply in any educated way, of course. Her mouth began to form the word ‘sorry’, and that’s as far as she got; her vision darkening and tilting until a second thud from hitting the floor was the last thing she managed to process.

-

Was this death, at last? Atlanta considered her situation. Being killed by the statue of the illustrious Sheogorath sounded reasonably humiliating. Managing to set off a drunken Daedra wasn’t terribly far out of her league. Getting a final glimpse of the most beautiful and monstrous meress she’d ever seen before succumbing to her wounds, was seen as a postmortem ‘win’. Count your blessings, and all that.

Of course, if this was death, then why did her damned head still throb?

Consciousness ebbed back into her slowly, temporarily giving her the assurance that this was all a dream. She was in a bed, at least, and in a room she could assume was hers. She didn’t remember painting the walls red, though.

Atlanta at first fought against, then quickly accepted her inability to move her head or limbs. The putrid stench was stronger here than any other part of the inn it permeated; she was at the root of all the death that caused it. The source of all the muffled screaming she’d try to sleep through. The room she was told never to approach. Relmyna’s room.

Relmyna, in question, was outside of her narrow field of vision, but she could still hear her. Some soft footsteps. A few clinks of metal. Some soft, idle mumbling she couldn’t make out. The sorceress approached her prone ‘guest’ with a wheeled serving cart, wearing a clean apron and gloves that told Atlanta that whatever she was doing, she was only just beginning.

“Do you know how hard it is to collect Daedric subjects this far from the city?” Relmyna complained aloud to Atlanta, perhaps knowing full well she couldn’t respond. “Especially with that damn law he put in place. _‘Consorts in active service to the protection of the Isles can no longer be summoned or manipulated by mortal magicks’._ That’s a goddamn __attack__ on my work and he knows it.”

Relmyna began to set up a curious collection of tools; a reflecting lamp made to shine its light directly into Atlanta’s face. A metronome not unlike the one that greeted Atlanta at the door.

“... And its __because__ of this new law that I can’t take my pickings from patrols on the road, and now I have to find civilians. Do you know how tedious it is to corner a __civilian__ consort outside of the city? Where they can’t have their __dear sisters__  come out of the woodwork and help them? You cost me a __lot__ of work, you miserable pile of shamble parts.”

This had to be how Atlanta would die. It couldn’t be the worst death she could encounter, surely; not with the Dunmeress leaning into her, close enough to smell the sweat and grime on her. Close enough to see the bloodshot veins in her naturally pink sclera. Close enough to fantasize fondly about the texture of her lips, the softness of her withered cheeks. But perhaps now wasn’t the time to be admiring her.

Relmyna took a closer look, grabbing Atlanta by the cheeks roughly, turning her head and flashing the reflecting lamp in her eyes. Examining her scalp, her teeth, her pulse throbbing at her neck. By the time Relmyna withdrew, Atlanta could hear the blood pump loudly in her ears, her face a sweating, burning wreck.

The sorceress didn’t give her ‘guest’ a second glance as she began writing notes in a worn, dog-eared notebook. The anticipation was killing Atlanta before Relmyna had a chance to, with the prone mer straining against whatever magical paralysis kept her on the cot. She knew escaping was out of the question; its not like she had anywhere to go that she could get to without passing out, if she could even run. At this point, she may as well just wonder what this strange woman was writing about her.

Relmyna looked back at her with a stern, disapproving half-sneer pulling at the corner of her lip, if only for a moment. More unseen notes, more gentle muttering to herself. If Atlanta could speak, she had half a mind to ask for a glass of water.

“I know you’re Nanette’s pet, so stop looking like a poached rabbit,” Relmyna said, when she was finished. “You’ve been a good lesson for her so far. I’ll let this go on until I take her back with me, I guess.”

Atlanta fought against her numb mouth to try and form a composed, perhaps even charming response, but all she got out was a hollow “Wuh...?”

…Which Relmyna took with an annoyed little glare. “You should be thankful I’m even helping you. You’re welcome for the knife, by the way.”

“Nnn… knifffe?”

Come to think of it, the dagger she slashed that Daedra with seemed __awfully__ coincidental. Relmyna broke into a small, coy smile; a spark of mischievous glee in her eyes while flashing a blade handle folded into her apron. Atlanta had to tear her gaze away; she didn’t have the constitution for that.

“I was hoping you’d incapacitate the Mazken for me and I could clean up the rest. You were almost a good little helper, if you hadn’t crumpled like parchment. On top of __my Lord’s visage__ , no less.”

Atlanta moved her tongue around the numbed confines of her mouth, opening and closing her mouth experimentally before uttering a slurred “Sorry.”

“Hmm.” Relmyna looked her subject over placidly, but at least not aggressively. “That paralysis spell didn’t last long, did it? Do you feel anything? Any pain, or tactile sensations at all?”

“Naw’really,”

“ _ _Unfortunate__ , though that is what I was looking for.” More notes were scribbled in. What in god’s name was she studying here?

As the sorceress approached close to the bedside again, Atlanta prayed that she didn’t look like the slack-jawed, drooling mess she had a feeling that she was at the moment.

“Nanette tells me you’ve been weaned back onto an appropriate diet, but the long term effects of your illness impedes your progress.”

She tapped Atlanta under the chin in a curt manner. Feeling flooded back to her face from the contact, sending a teeth-grinding wave of pins-and-needles-like sensations through her muscles. When she saw that her captive was able to move her mouth properly, Relmyna continued.

“You seem to be quite weak. Fatigue, sluggishness, weakness of the limbs… all common symptoms that can be thwarted with exercise that you are too sick to do. I’ve dealt with too many emaciated subjects who exemplified this.”

Relmyna brushed her fingertips against a bare section of Atlanta’s leg. It wasn’t the dispelling that sent chills up her body, that time.

“I would have discarded you immediately if you were under my observation. You are a weak and wasting wretch that would’ve been eaten by baliwogs the moment you stepped foot in the realm, had mortal intervention not occurred…. Perhaps, it is this sort of intervention that keeps us holding onto our baggage, our __dead meat__ , and bringing our entire kingdom down.”

Relmyna toyed the tip of her quill against her lips. A devastating gesture. Atlanta was barely listening at this point.

“... And yet perhaps, we become stronger as a whole by lifting our less fortunate up. I have been seeking out ways to improve my Lord’s people through scientific research; would you like to be my perfect example?”

Throat dry, body aching from pain resettling after the numbness, Atlanta nodded dumbly.

Relmyna smirked, slight and condescending. “Splendid. You still owe me a Mazken body, of course, but I’m not one to impose favors on others. When I’m done with you, perhaps you’ll become the next best thing.”

And with that, Relmyna began taking out the first vials of… something out of her desk, in various colors and viscosity. A few had been labeled, but the only thing Atlanta could make out was red ink and bold letters in the universal symbolism behind a warning label.

Atlanta; head throbbing, heart pounding, had never felt so close to death, yet so alive. She should have been frightened of the many blades Relmyna had at her disposal. Or the surgical tools, known and unknown, that she had laid out for the venture ahead. Or the many stains of gore that turned the whole room a splattered mess. Or perhaps the knife Atlanta could still see, in the fold of the her captor’s apron.

At this rate, she wasn’t afraid of a few knives. She had nothing to lose.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as she entered the room, Atlanta was hit with a particularly fresh smell of spilt blood. No, it was never just blood. There was also the acrid stench of bile. The bitter and stomach-turning tones of decay. And, if you were lucky, a sinus-clearing whiff of unknown chemicals.

There was yet another body on the cot, opened up like a chest with all its contents rummaged around inside. Relmyna was pulling off her long leather gloves, slick with the blood of her victim.

Atlanta tried not to look at the wide-open eyes of the dead man who laid there. “Evenin’, miss Verenim.”

“Hmm,” Relmyna just barely bothered to reply. The wet gloves were slapped over the back of a chair. “How is your heart today, Atlanta?”

“Uh. Still racin’ for no reason sometimes. Is that bad?”

Atlanta froze as Relmyna approached her. Cold, bare fingers pinched gently around her neck, just underneath the jaw. Atlanta felt and heard her blood pumping in between them.

“It could be,” Relmyna replied with no hint of reassurance. “Any shortness of breath? Lightheadedness?”

Well, definitely __now__. “On occasion, ma’am.”

“I see.”

Relmyna pulled Atlanta’s mouth open with little resistance. Knowing the routine, the patient was obedient; sticking her tongue out when prompted, turning her head with the guidance of Relmyna’s hand. Being manhandled a bit was hardly the worst part of this.

Atlanta could only breathe once Relmyna went to prepare the day’s dosage. Then, the full brunt of her awkwardness set in. Desperately, she looked around for some source of smalltalk.

“So, ah… find anything interesting in this guy?” She gestured to the body on the cot. Relmyna stiffened in response, glass vials in her hands clinking together. Atlanta wasn’t the only awkward one here, it seemed.

Relmyna didn’t look up from her desk as she answered, pouring different fluids into a glass. “Well, it was a new arrival that I caught by chance. Mostly uninteresting, internally… I found a tapeworm, but that’s about it.”

Atlanta paled. “A tapeworm?”

Relmyna paused to hold up a jar within her reach. A pale, flat worm was coiled tightly in a shallow amount of fluids. “We don’t usually have parasites like these in the Isles, so its fortunate that I caught this when I did. It would be most __unfortunate__ if the Isles suffered an outbreak through one unworthy supplicant.”

“A-aye,” Atlanta averted her eyes. Every time she thought she could stomach Relmyna’s work, she was proven incredibly wrong.

Relmyna, at least, simply ignored disgusted reactions. “It is rather noteworthy, what havoc one seemingly innocuous wretch from the outside could wreak on our humble realm, don’t you think?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

With a cold smile, Relmyna presented her finished potion; a thick and profanely murky mixture in a clean, fresh glass.

“Now: you may want to be sitting down for this one.”

 

Bracing herself in her seat, Atlanta gave her medicine a foolhardy chug. The taste itself wasn’t the worst part, but the sheer revulsion her body drew from the alchemy itself. Whatever Relmyna was putting into her, it clearly wasn’t natural. The urge to vomit hit her like a brick to the face. Her reflexive reach for the pail on the floor was cut short by it getting kicked away from her.

Relmyna sneered. “Keep it down for more than a minute this time, or you’re getting an enema.”

It was easier said than done. The room spun for Atlanta, eyes watering as she cupped her hands over her mouth. Blood pounded in her ears. Her throat burned with bile just short of coming up. The wait for Relmyna to allow her to puke it all back up may have been just a few minutes, but it felt like a lifetime.

“This may give you vertigo,” Relmyna warned, when she finally nudged the bucket between her patient’s feet. “I’m still trying to find balance with your humors, so you may notice an upset for a while yet.”

Atlanta doubled over in her seat, and tried to aim for the bottom of the pail. It was humiliating enough having Relmyna watch every disgusting reaction she had without making a mess, as well. Not that it would matter; Relmyna was more than capable of that, what with all the corpses. At least she didn’t seem to care about the loud retching echoing throughout the room. She didn’t mind the sorry state Atlanta came to her in, either. This couldn’t have been the worst corpse she worked on.

The worst had to be over by now, Atlanta figured, after a few more unproductive dry heaves. She barely managed to stand before the vertigo hit her like a brick to the face. Mixing with the nausea into a truly abominable, vision-blackening, near death experience. Mercifully, Atlanta felt numb as she could see the floorboards closing in on her.

Relmyna paid no heed to her patient collapsing to the floor in a heap, too busy keeping an observational record of the event. She could still see her scrawny frame breathing. That was good enough. “I told you so.”

She could have had a more mindful patient, perhaps. Then again, Relmyna found that the more cautious ones didn’t last much longer, either.

 

Those cold but delicate fingers were what brought Atlanta back to the land of the living. Relmyna wasn’t the worst angel of death she could look up at; hell, this was becoming something of a habit for a reason. Hopefully, her doctor didn’t notice the reason her pulse ticked back up under the firm grip around her throat.

Relmyna’s bemused smile was as cold as ice, setting Atlanta’s face on fire under her hand.

“It seems I may have made a slight miscalculation. You should start feeling less restless now, at least. Or, you may fall into a coma. Either way, you should relax.”

… Comforting.

Just like that, Relmyna’s brief bedside manner ended as she got to her feet, and worked more on her infernal medicines. Atlanta felt perfectly comfortable on the floor, feeling her heart hammer in her chest. For someone who had to be on the edge of death, she felt so overwhelmingly alive.

More tests were performed, as a part of their sessions together. At had been a few days since the last time, so Relmyna carefully drew blood with one of those strange, brass syringes. She was almost gentle, this time. Or perhaps Atlanta had no more feeling left in the crook of her elbow, where the bruising began to turn a sickly green.

The silence was deafening. Atlanta struggled to fill the void of interaction. “So, when are you gonna tell me what these ‘humors’ are?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Relmyna pulled the needle out curtly, making her patient flinch in discomfort. “They’re merely a byproduct of other ventures.”

“How long do I need to keep takin’ them?”

“As long as I see fit, I’ve told you already.”

The blood looked normal enough in its vial. Atlanta half expected it to be boiling and unstable, as it felt in her chest at all times. Though, that may have been a symptom of being too close to Relmyna. Feeling her skirt brush against her, hearing her soft sighs during the lulls in her work. A fleeting moment of eye contact made her shiver, and blurt out, “A-am I doing a good job?”

Relmyna’s sarcastic half-smirk told her that maybe this time, it wasn’t the worst question she could ask. “You’re still alive, aren’t you? That’s what I want to see.”

“I do my best, ma’am.” Atlanta’s response was automatic, and frankly, embarrassing by the time she said it.

Luckily, Relmyna was always either too busy or too oblivious to notice Atlanta’s red face and cracking voice. It was for the best; she had no business being around a woman like this in the first place. She was just a pawn in this strange experiment. One of them was going to leave this cage, one way or another, and they’d never see each other again.

That was always a fear in the back of Atlanta’s mind; not just out of pining for her, but from the uncertainty of life without these sessions. Would she be taking these ‘humors’ for the rest of her life? Would she die without Relmyna’s support? It was uncertain, and hard to bring up. Relmyna also seemed to ignore the uncertainty of the future. There was no set plan to these experiments; there was only how farther she could push her subject’s body. Atlanta was starting to become curious about that, as well.

 

Relmyna’s notes on Atlanta’s progress had filled up an entire book already, with the sorceress still slipping footnotes in the margins. Her formulas had changed in color, texture and taste as weeks went by, always perfecting whatever goal she had in mind. A goal reflected in the body of her test subject. Was it a goal, really? Was she not simply toying with her? It was unclear to begin with. Atlanta was just grateful to survive another night, and be able to come back again for the next.

What could she say? It was the way Relmyna looked at her. The way she carried herself. The mystery surrounding everything she did. They were worlds apart in any other circumstance, but here, they were in the same inn. In the same prison. She’d be a fool to not take that slim, fleeting chance to get to know her. This queen, in her own little world of blood and gore.

All Atlanta knew was that her body felt taut; drawn fast like a bowstring with every muscle fiber in her body straining beneath her skin. She still looked gaunt, but the golden cast came back to her complexion. The muscles under her skin looked more defined than ever; almost to a grotesque extent on her still scrawny frame, no matter how voraciously she ate. Looking into a mirror she could neither recognize herself, nor know who she was supposed to recognize in the first place.

She felt powerful, and frail all at once. Atlanta’s energy skyrocketed a few days into her strange trials with Relmyna. Pretty soon, she was organizing the entire inn’s storefront at three in the morning. Chopping enough firewood for the year. Clearing out ruined structures, scavenging and exploring every nook and cranny within the walls. She breezed through all menial tasks any of the others in Passwall could give her, until she begged Relmyna to give her something - __anything__ , just to get her to sleep. When Relmyna complied, the unholy chemicals she had her test subject breathe in knocked her out for a full three days. It was another interesting development, as far as Relmyna was concerned.

The weather began to cool down noticeably, over time. Storms became more frequent. Atlanta still marveled at how the weather and even the seasons changed as naturally as back in the mortal realm. The stock of supplies and precious, precious news from beyond the gates changed with the seasons as well. Trade caravans and scavengers came and went. The Mazken, Udico, with left with her troupe; licking her wounds but not pursuing Atlanta. She would return, with their regular visits. She still had a scar. Atlanta was still on barkeep duty. When they crossed paths again, they could only laugh at the coincidence. Udico noted that her Lord was quite fond of ironic humor in life. Her Lord in question’s statue had since been replaced, though Atlanta would still occasionally step on tiny shards of it left un-swept.

Passwall continued to receive a trickle of supplicants that never seemed to stay long, for one reason or another. Despite the gentle flow of change the world turned on, Atlanta was still here. Still in the prison of Sheogorath’s promise of freedom. Little by little, she felt like those walls were closing in.

She had already explored the entirety of the Fringe. With her renewed vigor, she would hike through the marshes and ruins all day; coming back with armfuls of tentacles or root pods or slaughtered baliwogs. She’d climb the tallest mushroom tree to get the barest glimpse of the world outside, and even considered scaling the wall itself. Anything to escape. Anything to get out alive.

Going through the front gates wasn’t going to work. Most people who went to pass through them simply couldn’t pass through the Gatekeeper. The Warden of Atlanta’s new jail cell. He was untouchable, immortal, and most of all: he was Relmyna’s __baby__. Atlanta couldn’t, in good conscience, think about taking the beast down while she visited the room of its mother every evening. Even if she could.

Could she?

-

Most who threw themselves at the Gatekeeper’s judgment plotted their doom in the inn. Atlanta overheard so many half-baked plans at the counter, so many ideas that didn’t work in the end…. No amount of warning them could make them stay. She understood. She would have joined them long ago, if she hadn’t scrounged up reasons to stay. Dredwhen needed help at the inn. Nanette needed a friend. Relmyna… thought her to be useful at the moment, at least.

None of these supplicants had anything left to lose, once they passed into the Fringe. They came into the realm with only the clothes on their backs. Some, however, were more prepared than others.

A hunter wearing furs wandered into town one evening, disoriented and confused as one often was upon arrival. He still had a bow and quiver slung over his back, and an unskinned rabbit on his belt. A man of the Skyrim wilds, plucked right out of the forest. A survivalist, whose self-imposed solitude made him case the inn like a den of monsters before he dared slink into the shadows of the room.

Atlanta couldn’t remember the last time she picked up a bow. At least she had all the time in the world to sharpen her skills again now. The hunter reminded her of a simpler time, long before her imprisonment. Those days traveling the West Weald, living off the land; that true feeling of __freedom__ after a lifetime in the walls of the city. This Nord had to understand. She needed this distraction.

He was carefully, skillfully carving bone into arrowheads, at one of the fishing spots set up around the ruins. For all his own skittishness, his discerning gaze pinned her to the spot when she finally approached him.

“Do you hunt, elf?”

Atlanta sat down a good, respectful distance from him. “I did, once, sera. Do you make all your own arrows?”

The Nord showed her his work, letting the white of the bone catch in the afternoon sun. The flared sides were impressively symmetrical, serrated in a brutal fashion.

“Aye, I string my own bow as well. The trick is to use the bones of small game; they’re brittle, but their voices are quieter. They don’t startle the animal.”

“... I see…?”

The Nord nodded, content in that his wisdom was the most natural thing in the world. “I followed the bones here, because they told me the greatest hunt of all would be in the hunting grounds of the gods. I saw that giant in the old courtyard, and I knew I had come to the right place.”

Atlanta felt a chill trace down her spine. She chalked it up to the ‘humors’ making her jittery again.

“Well, ser, I cannot stop you from chargin’ on the Gatekeeper’s turf, but I would ask you to stop and think about it first.”

He did, for a moment, seem to be lost in thought at Atlanta’s words. Perhaps even listening to whatever the bones told him. The wind picked up; chilly and dry. Beyond the wall, storms rolled towards the horizon.

“I think,” he finally answered, when the distant roll of thunder snapped him out of a lull, “I will need the right bones before I try doing that.”

The breath caught in Atlanta’s chest eased out before she caught on that she was holding it. Another soul frantic for freedom was spared, for now.

“Well, until then, maybe you could show me how to make a bow like that?” She ventured to ask, expecting him to balk.

A grin split his unshaven face instead, showing off every one of his missing teeth. “Really, now? I thought all you wood elves knew how to string a bow!”

Atlanta grimaced. “I’m a city elf, sera. Not all of us were born in trees, you know.”

The Nord merely blinked at her, quizzically. “M’name’s not Sarah, lass. Call me Jayred.”

“No, that’s… You know what? Nevermind.”

-

The ruins at the far end of the Fringe’s enclosure were home to a small group of native creatures called ‘Grummites’. they seemed sentient, but primitive, and had a natural distrust for the men and mer they shared the realm with. Atlanta thought it cruel to bother them when they mostly kept to themselves, other than the occasional stolen tool or fish off an untended line. They just lived here; it was the supplicants who were the guests.

The Nord, Jayred, likened them to the goblins in Tamriel. Because of the nature of the land, Atlanta wondered if they were more like scamps. Either way, they were prey to her new friend.

The bones of his arrows really did sing, though perhaps not in the way that he heard them. The arrow Jayred let fly whistled faintly over the mudbanks, making a Grummite perk up in brief, fatal curiosity. Its head moved right into the path of the arrow; a clever, if not unreliable quirk of his work.

Atlanta, in her new-found strength, pulled back the bow like it was a child’s toy, to the point that Jayred bade her to go easy on the string. Her aim was shakier, less practiced, but the arrow shot a true and destructive path through the shoulder of a second Grummite. She felt a pang of guilt, seeing that it had run over to its fallen brethren in a panic. These weren’t animals, like the baliwogs.

Jayred, however, was one of those who saw thinking prey as a challenge. Atlanta knew those types before; those who hunted for sport. Those who’d raid smuggler dens under the assumption that bandits stopped being people. The types that would make up their mind of who was prey or not on the spot. Adventurers, as Relmyna called them. The term was apt, as Atlanta never met an adventurer who wouldn’t have killed her on the spot, a few decades ago.

The Grummites, predictably, had barely anything useful on them. They were scrawny and pale for their kind; probably sickly ones exiled from their colony. Jayred scoffed at their primitive bows and arrows, but took a spare quiver for himself. Atlanta recognized a few dirty pieces of tableware that had been missing from the inn in their possession. A handful of gold was split between them, and Jayred declared their hunt a success.

“I haven’t hunted with another in many years,” Jayred’s grim face softened in thoughtfulness, looking over the plundered bodies of the dead. “Not since my old partner ended up on the wrong end of a bear. A shame, too; his bones sounded sweetest when still under his skin.”

“... My condolences,”

Jayred shook his head, as if freeing himself of his mournful thoughts. “He never could hear the songs I did, so it was for the best. I don’t think he would have reached this grove, like I did.”

With that, he trudged onward, towards the crumbling traces of whatever fort that once stood long before them. Atlanta had no choice but to try and keep up with his hurried, quiet steps, deeper into territory she knew better than to intrude upon.

“You… you do know this isn’t a grove, right? This isn’t one of Hircine’s little hollows or anythin’ like that.”

Jayred merely shrugged, his pace uninterrupted. “It doesn’t matter who owns these grounds, what matters is that there’s a grand quarry to be taken down.”

The white stone threshold of the fort still stood, green with the creeping moss and mold of the realm. While it was barren, there were still signs of Grummite occupation; mostly in barricades and lean-tos. A few skulls and bones strung up caught Jayred’s brief attention. Normally, this site would have been crawling with the territorial creatures, but for now… the ruins were quiet. Unnaturally so. With the absence of any background noise, Atlanta heard the even tone of her ringing ears in between their footsteps.

Jayred inspected the shelters and the things left behind; mostly makeshift tools and bits of stolen clutter. “Do you think someone wiped ‘em out already in here?”

“Don’t really see why they would,” Atlanta shrunk a little against the chill of the wind. The whistling between the still-standing stone structures sounded a little more foreboding, now. “We got no reason to go after the Grumm’ on their own turf anyways. Those two were the first of ‘em I’ve seen in a while, come t’think of it.”

“Well, looks to me like they’ve been gone for a few days, at most. They got food just sitting out here, rotting.” Jayred sounded, briefly, morose. Atlanta noted the decaying, strung-up baliwog carcasses, in various states of butchery. A pot over a firepit had been left to go cold.

If they were slaughtered, there would have been bloodshed. If they fled, they wouldn’t have left everything behind. Cloud cover moving in front of the sun made the world around them dim in a befitting shift in mood.

Reluctantly, Atlanta followed Jayred further into the ruins. A door into the underground structure was perpetually left ajar by fallen rubble, and propped open further by grummite handiwork. The result was a gaping maw into darkness, breathing cold air into their faces. For an adventurer like Jayred, this was an invitation. His torch was already lit before Atlanta could gather the words to talk him out of it.

Atlanta heard a little about this place before, as hearsay from the locals. It was a city, at some point, though the idea that the Fringe once held enough people to fill a city made her almost as claustrophobic as the hole they traveled down. The hallway was wide enough for three people to walk abreast in, suited for its former splendor. For Atlanta, the walls on either side of her gave her a feeling of creeping dread. There was nothing beyond these walls but the impenetrable ground, the weight of which felt like a phantom yoke at the nape of her neck. She had been in enough cold, dark holes to last her a lifetime already.

Thankfully, the hall opened up into a series of yawning, cavernous plazas and many still-standing rooms. Towering statues of who could only be Sheogorath lurked in specially cut corners, open-mouthed in a silent bellow at anyone who looked at them. If this was a city, it must have been a grim one to live in indeed. The emptiness of the place, other than the occasional totem or structure of the Grummites, was unsettling. Their footsteps made a loud and long echo through the abandoned chambers, but no one seemed to be around to care.

Waving his torch over yet another long-unused remnant of his quarry, Jayred began to look weary. “Now I’m __sure__ someone’s been here before. This place has been gutted like a fish.”

Atlanta barely heard him under the ringing in her ears. The tone was not harsh or piercing, and not loud enough to be deafening, but still felt… oppressive. It was white noise, blanketing over everything. Reaching into the far corners of her mind and drowning out her thoughts. Did Jayred hear this too…? He didn’t seem phased by it, or anything, if he did. Perhaps, the bones were louder for him.

The ringing persisted, and seemed to evolve in its depth as they ventured further. The colder and dryer it got, the more the tone seemed to shift in pitch like an actual song. It was chilling, in way Atlanta couldn’t place. It felt less inside her head, and more right in front of her, now.

Jayred barely faltered as he led the expedition, until the torchlight glinted off of something in the dark. Something at the far end of a corridor. The pathway opened up into a balcony over one of the larger plazas, a dead end like many others they had seen. Looking out into the darkness, something faintly caught in the light. Jayred squinted into the shadows for a moment, handed Atlanta the torch, and reached for an arrow.

The arrow, after being topped with spirits-soaked cloth and touched by the flames, became a flare that arced over the expanse of the plaza. Atlanta felt slightly dismayed as it seemed to be swallowed by the shadows. If only for a brief moment. Its flight cut short when its reflection stretched and refracted off of something very, __very__ large, before clinking harmlessly off of its mirror-like surface.

The small sound it made grew, becoming a reverberating echo that made Atlanta’s teeth chatter in her skull. It melded with the singing in her head in a seamless, disorienting drone. The arrow, with its fading flame, fell down the length of an obelisk at the center of the room.

The flare was fading fast on the ground, but the crystalline structure reflected its dying light across the plaza. Atlanta choked on a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Jayred, though silent, lowered his head in a sense quiet of reverence.

The obelisk was the centerpiece of the room, a shiny and opaque silver. Though enormous, it wasn’t dreadful on its own. What covered the floor around it, was.

Grummites. Every last one of them that would have lived peacefully in these ruins. They had all gathered there, and knelt in a prayer circle that they never got up from, in the end. The drone pulsed through the blood in Atlanta’s ears. The silhouettes in the fading light were all thin and and small. Emaciated. They wasted away in here.

Jayred didn’t have time to react when Atlanta took the torch for herself. She started off in the opposite direction, and just prayed that would lead her __away__ from whatever that was. Jayred was hot on her tail, but even if he was faster he merely followed her. He was probably saying something; she couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t hear __anything__ over the constant, bone-shaking drone.

Even when Atlanta finally thought the sound was fading behind her, she still suspected that she merely became numb to it. The echo of it in her head continued long after it left her ears; but as she followed the draft of outside air, it mellowed into its previous hum.

Atlanta never thought she would be so happy to see the walls of the Fringe, circling around her as soon as she stumbled into the fresh air. This was a prison, but it wasn’t a cell. It wasn’t a mass grave. She tried to clear the hum from her head with a long and broken cry, but her breathlessness turned into hyperventilating. Jayred caught her before she could collapse properly, and finally, she welcomed the darkness.

-

It was after sundown, when Atlanta came to. The colorful and chaotic night sky was dappled with clouds above her, giving off more light than the moons at their fullest on Nirn. Gentle heat buffeted at the side of her face, and she turned over to see Jayred stoking a small fire. He seemed a bit paler than he was before, but still kept an air of steadfastness.

He greeted her not with any concern, but with a much more appreciated brandishing of a skewer full of meat. “Want some frog, miss?”

Laughing didn’t help her pounding headache, but it was comforting to be able to do so. At last, the only thing she could hear in her head was her thoughts again.

Awkward as it was, Atlanta could appreciate the quiet company Jayred provided. He didn’t speak of what he saw, just as she didn’t mention what she heard. Sometimes, closure was just the silent acknowledgment that something was now behind you.

Looking into the fire solemnly, Atlanta could voice only one thought on her mind. “I need to get out of here.”

Jayred nodded, mouth full of meat, in solemn agreement. Nothing more needed to be said.


	5. Chapter 5

Every waking moment spent in the Fringe had become suffocating, from then on. Atlanta experienced night terrors ever since delving into those ruins. They were mercifully forgotten by the time she woke, but apparently so vivid that Relmyna would bang on the wall between them to snap her out of her subconscious wailing. Different medicines were mixed to sedate them, but they only served to turn Atlanta into a listless, dissociated husk in her waking hours.

She and Jayred had taken to investigating every corner of the Fringe twice over, looking for weak points. They weren’t the first, as evidenced by the bodies they found of those who had the same idea; from diggers in flooded pits and broken skeletons near tall mushrooms. Was that any more dignified than getting killed by the Gatekeeper? The two debated their options and their own grip on their mortality for nights on end, as Atlanta’s world continued to grow smaller.

Nanette began focusing on her lessons, as Atlanta proved healthy enough to not need a nurse. Atlanta saw her go up those stairs on nights when her own checkups weren’t scheduled. Unlike her, Nanette only grew paler and sunken-eyed over time. She claimed that noises perceived and imagined had driven her to insomnia, but Atlanta saw it was only a half-truth. She heard the screams that came up from that room; and while it hurt to know what was going on, she was in no position to intervene.

 

One night, Nanette stumbled down the stairs, red-eyed but terse as the grave as she took a seat at the bar. She ordered a drink far stronger than she preferred. Atlanta understood. She only gathered the courage to pry when she noticed Nanette holding the glass of gin in her non-dominant hand. She was met with an uncharacteristically hard glare.

“It’s really none of your business. I don’t ask __you__ what goes on up there.”

Atlanta bristled, almost taken aback that sweet little Nanette was capable of such a tone. “Easy there, Nan’. I can say you’ve had enough to drink at any time.”

“... Sorry,” Nanette sighed after a moment of thought, “I know that’s not fair. I asked for this; it was __you__ who had no choice but to see her.”

She extended the pinkie of the hand she wasn’t using. The knuckle seemed crooked in a way uneasy to look at. “She had me practice on myself this time, you see. She said that the urgency of treating one’s own injuries was a lesson you wouldn’t soon forget.”

She then bent it, with some difficulty, and smiled to mask her wincing. “She told me I needed to stop hesitating mid-cast. Guess what I did tonight.”

Atlanta’s own hands balled into protective fists under the bar, subconsciously. “Nanette... if I’d known about this, I’d-”

“Oh, you’ve always known, _Atlanta_ ,” Nanette glowered. “You can’t play dumb about what she does. I don’t need rescuing from her. I just need to be a better apprentice.”

She closed her eyes, and took an Oblivion-seeking pull from her gin. Atlanta poured her another; she needed it.

“I asked for this. I saw what she does to people, and I accepted it. I should have known I would get hurt, too.”

Atlanta, unable to find the right words, simply nodded noncommittally.

Nanette gave her friend a sleepy smile above the rim of her glass. “So, what has she done to you? Do you know what you’re getting into now? I told you to stay away from her, if you knew what’s good for you.”

“Ah, well, its been… ‘humors’, fer the most part. Medicines n’ the like.” Atlanta scratched at trackmarks on the insides of her arms. “Sometimes I give her blood, sometimes other… _leavin’s _.__  Sometimes she cuts me open. I guess to make sure she did a good job in there.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

The air was still as Atlanta took a moment, and really considered it.

“It makes me feel alive, honestly.”

Nanette didn’t seem as content with that answer, downing her second glass before interrogating some more. “So you really don’t care if she hurts you?”

“You really don’t know where I’ve been, Nan’. I got nothin’ to lose. You’ve got… a life. You __had__ a life, on the outside. I had a choppin’ block.”

 _Or another cell,_  Atlanta noted to herself. She went ahead and poured her own glass. She needed it. “I don’t got much else over here, neither. Being around her makes me feel something, you know?”

For a bit, it seemed that the only sound in the inn came from the occasional dull clink of their glasses on the table. The soft swallowing of liquor. The subtle sighs of growing exasperation. Atlanta’s throat tightened around words unspoken. Nanette, as usual, was left to fill the gaps in the conversation.

“I’ve bloomed, you know. I’m ready to leave.”

That tightness became a knot, and Atlanta tried to quickly numb it with a reckless swig.

“How do you know?”

Nanette just shrugged. “It’s just what Relmyna tells me. I mean, if anyone knows how to tell, its her, right?”

The warmth of the gin in her system couldn’t quell the sickening chill Atlanta started to feel, starting at her gut and traveling upwards. She kept her face straight, but the glass quivered in her hand.

“Well I just, I thought there’d be more of a sign than that, y’know? I thought… I thought there’d be some sort of change.”

“I don’t think its that,” Nanette pondered the remainder of her glass. “Like, I’ve always been mad; I know I’ve been mad, like most of us are. I guess it’s just a thing of readiness.”

_“I ** **am**** ready.”_

Atlanta’s voice was louder and clearer than it had been in months then, filling the empty room and making Nanette flinch out of reflex. The two paused, looking the other in the eyes. Atlanta’s heart pounded, and it brought the waver back to her voice.

“I’m ready. I’ve _been_ ready. I’ve been tryin’a get outta here for months now, and you just wake up one day good to go? Is that how it works here?”

“Well, maybe you’re missing something. Milord has a plan in mind for all of us, you know. Maybe yours just involves… waiting.” Nanette smiled, as naively sincere as ever. It made fire course out of Atlanta’s throat.

“Oh, _fie_ on your gotdamn Lord, Nan’! These walls are fuckin’ killin’ me, is that what he wants?! Cos’ if he wanted me to go mad in prison, he should a’ come for me twenty years ago!”

Atlanta didn’t realize she was yelling until she heard the echo of her voice in the rafters. Nanette had paled considerably, unable to hide the fear in her face when she looked at whatever snarl Atlanta must have flashed her then. Immediately, Atlanta felt regret; her shoulders slumping weakly despite the tense, angry clenching of her closed fists.

Glasses were collected, washed, and set back up in the cabinets again. The two stewed in the mild sickness that came with mixing embroiled emotions and drink, in silence. Nanette fidgeted; but then, she always did. Her voices were worse in the silence, but unfortunately Atlanta couldn’t find it in her to distract her friend with conversation. It was Nanette who had to break the tension, under the gentle knocking sound of her foot tapping against the legs of her barstool.

“You could just take down the Gatekeeper.”

Her fidgeting slowed to a stop when Atlanta stared at her, dumbstruck.

“Well, that’s… that’s not an option, right? He’s immortal, ain’t he?”

Nanette squirmed, a guilty look on her face as she dodged eye contact. “Well… what if I told you that there was a fundamental flaw in the Gatekeeper’s creation? One that Relmyna herself can’t even fix? Now, I’m not advocating murder of my mentor’s child here, but if you were to… use this exploit… perhaps all you need to do is weaken it to cut the keys out of its body?”

She smiled sweetly, belying a more sinister, spiteful look in her cheerful eyes. Atlanta could put two and two together; a hell hath no fury like an uppercrust human girl who was even slightly inconvenienced.

Atlanta leaned in close; looking over her shoulder as if Relmyna could appear at any moment, like a specter of her guilt. “What do I have t’do?”

Nanette closed the space between them, and whispered her secrets into Atlanta’s ear.

* * *

 

“... _Tears?_ ” Jayred scoffed, a little too loud for Atlanta’s liking. It was the next morning; fog was blanketing the surface of the marsh, and the sun was only a few yellow dapples behind a foreboding cloud cover. It set a grim tone for what Atlanta was about to propose.

“Aye, Relmyna’s tears. The tears of its… the tears of its ma’.” It was hard for Atlanta to swallow. “Nanette says it ain’t hurt by ‘em so to speak, only pained. It doesn’t normally feel pain, you know? That means, when its touched by her tears, it seizes right up.”

“I can’t see why we can’t just kill the damned thing,” Jayred pouted like a boy in his seat facing the dew-dampened firepit. “I’d have that giant’s head above my mantel yesterday if it weren’t for you and your bleedin’ elf heart.”

“There just ain’t no reason to kill somethin’ that’s just doin’ its job,” Atlanta snapped back, “I don’t want a trophy or more blood on my hands, Jayred. I just want __out__. Those keys are in its skin, and they said nothin’ about having to kill it to get to ‘em.”

Jayred grumbled, hands fidgeting with the bone he had been whittling down into a worried nub. He had been in the Fringe for only a couple weeks, but with his natural wanderlust, it had taken its toll on him. Atlanta had seen it all too many times before. Seeing him in particular dealing with the same restless, desperate anxiety she did was none too pleasant. Wildmen like him needed freedom.

“At least if its dead we can cut the keys right out of it. How do we know if we can even do that if its still alive?”

“We just gotta be quick about it. I’ve seen it get cut before; the flesh just stitches itself back up in a minute. It should take less n’ that to grab what we need.” Atlanta was shaking; she felt close, for once, and the fear and excitement made it impossible to stay in her seat.

Jayred seemed to notice that; his stubble-darkened mouth drawing taut in a disapproving, but silent grimace. “Have you even thought about how you’re going to collect the tears? Or are you just going to ask that witch woman to cry into a bottle?”

Atlanta flinched. She didn’t want to think about Relmyna’s connection to this. “I’ll fuckin’… I’ll figure somethin’ out, okay?”

She started to fidget as well, fingers pulling apart splinters of twigs within her reach. Between the two, they had made small piles of detritus and frustration at their feet.

“I also found something,” Jayred softly admitted, after a moment of quiet whittling. “I don’t know if it’ll work better’n tears, but its something. I’ve heard its bones, but not the bones inside it, you see? There’s different bones. Bones of its kin that are in those ruins on the north side. I’ve seen ‘em, under all the weeds.”

“That’s Relmyna’s garden,” Atlanta knew of it, but she had no reason to pry over it. The small, closed-off courtyard was overgrown with all sorts of nasty looking brambles and likely poisonous fungi that she had no desire to mess with. “You sayin’ there’s another Gatekeeper’s body in there?”

“Its skeleton. Its huge, loud skeleton. Screaming at me like these walls are. It wants out, too.” The piece of bone broke off in Jayred’s hand, and with a disappointed little grunt he discarded it. “We can all escape tonight if we get those bones. If anything can hurt that thing, its the bones of its kin. _Not_ the tears of some old witch.”

“Well, that’s no more likely than my idea, now isn’t it? At least mine’s backed up by research. And I told you, I don’t want to kill it.”

Jayred was stubborn, as always. It showed in the way he subconsciously straightened out of his hunch, cutting a more intimidating figure than his hunting partner. “It’s easier to find bones than it is to gather tears. Go after that mad hunt if you want, I’ll take my chances with mine.”

Atlanta sighed. “Fine, then. Its your funeral; and I ain’t talkin’ about the Gatekeeper bein’ what kills ya.”

She knew she couldn’t keep him from his Grand Hunt forever. Even if the looming dread of having to kill the Gatekeeper lingered, the agony of dying behind these walls would always be just a little stronger.

 

That agony was never lessened by these fruitless plans to escape. They always just made those walls grow a little tighter around Atlanta. A vice around her neck, her chest, her head. At least in the Imperial dungeons, no hope of escape could taunt her. She could just turn inwards, and shut out the bleak existence around her. They forgot her there, and in time, she forgot herself.

Now, the prospect of ‘hope’ was a cruel joke played on her. Perhaps even a deliberate meddling from the Madgod himself, just to ensure her sick mind would be ripened to its sweetest. The bearded face of the Daedra mocked her at every turn; embossed, carved, and sculpted into countless works of art and worship within the Fringe. A reminder that no matter what, this was the prison that _he_ created.

Atlanta stewed in a blossoming grudge against him, if only because it distracted her from her misery. That, and her fruitless attempts to go through with her half-formed plans. The tears theory was a trail that grew cold quickly. Its not like she could in fact, ask for Relmyna’s aid; she could barely ask the sorceress for a napkin to go with her sick pail, as their sessions continued to wreak havoc on Atlanta’s body.

Ever since Nanette had admitted she was ready to leave, Atlanta feared losing these sessions as well. Not only from the risk of her body giving out without them, but from losing this brief, fragile connection she had with Relmyna. A woman she could barely talk to. A woman who would barely look at her. If they were to part, it would make no difference, but why did the world feel like it would end if they did? Her life shouldn’t hinge on a woman who saw likely her as a disposable toy.

Weakly, hopelessly, Atlanta spoke up to her for the first time in a week. She stared down at the bottom of a bucket she was all too familiar with now. “You sure I’m not ready to leave the Fringe, ma’am? I’ve… been here an awful long time, and all.”

Her eyes caught a glimpse of Relmyna looking at her, and she quickly reacquainted herself with the wood grain of the floor.

“You’re by no means an abnormal case, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Relmyna’s reply had the iciness Atlanta was expecting, but not as harshly as she imagined. “The quality of your soul is simply not up to snuff, you see. You have a… _conventional_ type of soul.”

“How can you tell?”

Relmyna softly scoffed, almost smiling at the comment. “I’ve picked apart more than enough of your kind to see the uninspired quality of your blood, and the _dull and thoughtless_  look in your eyes. It takes more than madness to seek asylum in Lord Sheogorath’s paradise.”

She let Atlanta mull over those words, cleaning up her workspace from a long day of her profane science. It was getting late, and the pressure of that mounted on Atlanta to leave before she felt like a nuisance. Relmyna stopped her as she got to her feet.

“Your anxieties are not unfounded, however. The Fringe is a trial in itself, set to test us. The truly mad feel it the worst, if that’s any consolation to you. I spent a very long time here, myself,” Relmyna closed her eyes for a moment, a surprisingly soft look on her face as she savored some far-off memory. “The self-imposed exile was necessary for building the Gatekeeper, but it wasn’t an easy endeavor. I feel like I came out stronger for it. Perhaps, you will be, too.”

Relmyna gave Atlanta an appraising, almost proud look, taking in how far her patient had come. Atlanta certainly looked much healthier than when she arrived, even if her troubles turned her eyes dark and sunken. Her frame had filled out considerably as she reached a healthy weight, and her scalp was scruffy with growing, light-colored fuzz. She felt Relmyna’s eyes on her, and flushed red.

“... I’m tryin’ to be strong, ma’am. I really am.”

She couldn’t tell if Relmyna heard that or not. Her doctor had put aside her gloves and butcher’s apron, donning a relatively un-bloodied cape around her shoulders.

“I trust you to rinse out the bucket, if you’re going to keep using it like you do. I’m taking my leave; lock the door behind you.”

Relmyna seemed hurried as she walked out the door, not bothering to acknowledge Atlanta’s nervous farewell. This wasn’t unheard of; Relmyna preferred to go outside under the dead of night, Atlanta had gathered. Nanette had told her that she was visiting her son, as any mother would.

Atlanta remembered what Nanette said of Relmyna’s tears. Did she discover this anomaly while simply seeing her child? What must it be like, to know that you were inadvertently the only weakness of the most important thing in your life? What would she do if she knew someone would exploit that?

The guilt of what she was going to do could not drown out the anxiety these walls gave her. Atlanta began to search for any collected samples of the Gatekeeper’s weakness. There had to be _something_ ; if Relmyna could catalogue every shit Atlanta took for the past several months, she would have damn well preserved something about this known flaw.

Atlanta carefully picked through the drawers of Relmyna’s desk. They were stuffed with foul samples in small jars, spare potions, Atlanta’s medicine. Loose notes in cursive too messy for her to read lined the bottom, stained with ever-present droplets of blood. Atlanta checked the smallest vials first; the ones with barely a few drops in them, with their labels dwarfing the dainty glass. Nothing. Next, there were any bottles that seemed filled with something clear. Nothing again.

Looking for some hint, Atlanta kept an eye on the legible parts of the loose pages she found. Her practice in reading had paid off, but Relmyna’s chicken-scratch handwriting would have probably stumped even a formal scholar. She could glean very little about the Gatekeeper, but other bits and pieces of Relmyna’s secrets came to the surface instead.

There were a few unsealed envelopes, hidden underneath everything else. Out of view, perhaps more for Relmyna herself than others. That became apparent as Atlanta leafed through one, noting the much clearer script, written for a recipient rather than for personal records.

 _‘Dearest Sheogorath,’_ it began. It was written clearly, if not with a wavering hand, with parts of it scratched out and barely legible. Atlanta’s stomach flipped. She had no business with this and _wanted_ no business with it, but….

 

_Dearest Sheogorath,_

_It’s been so long since you’ve written back. I can barely remember your handwriting. I’ve become so absorbed in my work that it almost feels like I can bear to be away from you, until these vulnerable moments. I remember that these long periods of silence were not always there while you still visited. In the silence between my subjects’ screams, and the moments where I am not enraptured by new blood being spilt, I can’t help but feel forgotten._

_I try not to dwell on these blasphemous thoughts. You are never truly absent as my God, but ~~you are neglectful as a lover~~  are you still a part of my life, as my lover? Are you a part of our child’s life, as a father? ~~Or was that all just the extent of my usefulness?~~ _

_I can’t keep letting myself become vulnerable ~~over you~~ . I’m just going to keep praying. _

_I shouldn’t send this._

 

More had been written still; but dripping to the very edges of the page was a long-dried ink stain, obscuring Relmyna’s frustrations.

Atlanta didn’t realize that she had been holding her breath until her body pushed her to gasp for air. From the very first words she knew it would upset her, and yet she just __had__ to keep going, the fool that she was. This wasn’t going to help her escape, and neither was dwelling on it. The letter crumpled in her grasp, and she hurried to stuff it back into the drawer lest she start ripping it into pieces.

Another dead end, that’s all it was. Jayred’s plan wasn’t looking so unpleasant now, if it got her out of here faster.

For now, she needed fresh air.

* * *

 

A cool mist had settled in the marshy parts of the Fringe, illuminated by the colorful sky. At least in moments like these, Atlanta could lose herself to the vast canvas the night revealed. Whether it was another machination of Sheogorath or a window into the greater plane of Oblivion was uncertain. She wasn’t one to pay any heed towards the cosmos, other than the direction it would give on Nirn.

It was jarring at first, not having the constellations she had been so accustomed to. She missed them, in her time imprisoned. She had hoped to see them again, at least briefly. They framed memories of her time sailing the Topal Sea. Or was it the Inner Sea? Both? Atlanta hoped that those good memories would be spared, after she let so much of herself fade away.

Now, the absence of herself in her own mind was replaced by the claustrophobic presence of the Fringe. The tops of the walls framed the beautiful sky almost spitefully, specifically to remind Atlanta of her continued imprisonment. There was no distraction from Sheogorath’s mockery here.

Mournfully, Atlanta hoped to find Jayred at his little camp, but found him absent. They had parted on rather tense and bitter terms before, so she assumed he set off to be away from her. Fine; let him prefer the company of his bones. Nanette and the others in Passwall had long since gone to bed. The night was silent, and still. Only the soft rush of the breeze and a distant, sad hum could be heard. What was that, anyways? Atlanta had heard of it before. She focused on it, and headed in its direction.

The Fringe was small, and she was familiar enough with it now to know exactly where she was, creeping closer to the courtyard of the Gates. Was the Gatekeeper the source of that noise? Its mouth seemed stitched shut and healed over, so perhaps all it could __do__ was hum.

Atlanta kept a wide berth, choosing the cover of the trees and scrub that circled the Gatekeeper’s stalking grounds. In the light of the stars, the hulking monster was hunched over something it cradled in its lap. No, someone. Relmyna. Her dear son cradled her like a doll to its chest, and she spoke softly to it out of Atlanta’s range of hearing. The monster’s attempt to speak back sounded like a tuneless song, mournful and low as it handled its mother with the utmost care.

Relmyna ran her hand across the gnarled stitching and branded runes of her child’s face. All work she had done, once. In the dim lighting, Atlanta could barely make out the bittersweet look on her face as she cooed something privy only to the Gatekeeper. It made a low, purring growl, clearly enjoying all the attention.

Atlanta’s heart sank. There was no way she could do this, now. This wasn’t some unfeeling abomination, nor some faceless obstacle between her and freedom. This was someone’s child. She didn’t want to bring more pain into Relmyna’s life, when she already felt like she was intruding on it.

The soft coos and whispers from Relmyna wavered more and more as she stayed with her child. She slipped from the Gatekeeper’s embrace with a choked sob, burying her face in a handkerchief. The Gatekeeper reached out for her, only for Relmyna to swat it away.

“ _No,_ son. _stay_.” She raised her voice in a more commanding tone, though her voice cracked, and having to leave that moment of comfort only seemed to upset her more. The Gatekeeper seemed confused, but obediently stayed put.

“I’m sorry. I can’t stay around you when I’m like this.”

Crestfallen, the gatekeeper stood to its full height, appeared to give its mother one last doleful look with eyes it didn’t have, and returned to its post. Forever pacing, waiting for the next unworthy supplicant to try and face it. Once again a living tool of singular purpose. Relmyna sniffled, and hurried to get away from the thing she loved so dearly. She seemed all too aware of its single weakness.

Atlanta was thankful Relmyna didn’t notice her lurking in the darkness, witnessing her at her most vulnerable. She probably wouldn’t have survived. She would have deserved it, though. As Relmyna descended the steps back down into Passwall, the wind picked up with the scent of rain on its tail. Her dress and cloak fluttered, and the soiled handkerchief fell and was left on the ground behind her.

What a coincidence.

Atlanta froze. Her blood turned to ice, knowing exactly what she would have to do next. She was so close. She would be damned for all time for this, but she was so close.

The heartache she felt over Relmyna was not going to be enough to dissuade Atlanta from breaking her heart.

-

It would take just one arrow with the handkerchief on it. The only one she had. Atlanta grabbed the bow and arrows Jayred made for her, and set off to do this while the night still provided cover and privacy.

 _It was going to be easy,_ she told herself. The Gatekeeper was a big target. The handkerchief was damp with Relmyna’s tears. What was the worst that could happen. Her death? At least that would be some level of escape. Thunder began to crack distantly as the cloud cover set in, darkening the sky further.

One arrow, wrapped like she was making a flare but left unlit, was drawn back with all her strength. The darkness could not fully obscure the shambling figure of the creature, and as soon as the wind died down she could shoot a straight and true arc.

The arrow hit its mark in a place on the arm that wouldn’t have been fatal for anybody, much less bother the great beast. The handkerchief was buried deep into its flesh, and immediately, the effect it had was revealed. The arrow was barely a toothpick to the Gatekeeper, yet it recoiled from the strike. The runes that covered its body glowed in the darkness, throbbing angrily at the upset of their magics. The monster, who had been gently singing just earlier, now let out a scream like a man being suffocated.

The ground seemed to shake as it sunk heavily to its knees, unable to even claw at the wound with its other hand being its mounted blade. The Gatekeeper moaned in agony, twitching but ultimately pinned to the spot, shutting down from the pain with no way to end it. Atlanta felt a pang of sympathy, but she knew what had to be done.

“Sorry big guy, ain’t no other way to do this.” Her words of reassurance were more for herself than for the monster. It was a frightening feat to get as close as she was with it; her hunting knife drawn and ready to extract the keys. She hesitated as she hurried to figure out a way to get close to the part Nanette said the keys should be in, in its chest. Rain began to fall around them, and the sound obscured the familiar whistling behind her until it was too late.

Just barely missing her ear, a second arrow whizzed past her to join the first one, hitting the Gatekeeper lower on its injured arm. The monster cried out anew, hurt also by the carved, white arrow. An arrow made entirely out of bone.

 _“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??”_ Atlanta shrieked at Jayred, who knocked back another arrow in silence. The third buried itself in the Gatekeeper’s side, bringing it down to its hands and knees, struggling to stay upright.

Atlanta’s instinct to go after Jayred was tempered by him aiming the fourth one at her, as a warning. “I’m finishing this, elf! With or without you, so stay out of my way!”

The fourth arrow was pointed at the creature’s head. Atlanta still ran to Jayred, in vain, but she couldn’t have possibly stopped him.

The final blow sent the Gatekeeper crashing against the stairs it had spent its entire existence trying to protect. Wrecking the masonry on impact, and making the gigantic, glowering bust of Sheogorath beside it jostle dangerously. That crash had to have been heard all through the Fringe, as loud as the thunder that still rolled above them. Atlanta closed the distance between her and Jayred before he could properly react.

Despite being a fair amount bigger and sturdier than her, Jayred was toppled by Atlanta barreling into him at full force. the two of them crashed onto the courtyard ground, themselves, and Atlanta began swinging.

 _“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!”_ She screamed at him over the storm, fists flying at his face. Jayred was quickly bloodied by the battering, stunned and unable to overpower her.

 _“I did what I had to!”_ a well landed punch from his meaty fist caught Atlanta in the jaw, and made her hesitate enough to leave an opening for him to kick her backwards.

“Y’didn’t have to _kill_ it!” Atlanta’s voice cracked in a sob. She watched Jayred brandish his knife without any indication of reluctance. “I was going to do this _without_  bloodshed!”

“Sorry, friend. I want this more than you do.” Jayred apologized. He closed in on her, and made for a final strike.

Atlanta somehow, was quicker. Just by enough. The tip of his knife pierced her shirt and pricked the skin underneath, but his lunge was clumsy enough for her to dodge and redirect him to the ground. Jayred face-planted with a choked sound, going stiff for a moment that Atlanta mistook as hesitation before he rolled over. The knife, at an angle, was driven into his chest by his own fumble.

The look in Jayred’s eyes was briefly surprised, almost mournful. He turned his gaze to Atlanta almost pleadingly, but the light left them too quickly for her to even do anything.

Shock settled in, and thankfully numbed everything as Atlanta shakily got to her feet. It was hard to take her eyes off of the man she took for a friend, and it was harder still to set her gaze on the terrible act he had done.

Lightening briefly illuminated the body of the Gatekeeper. Huge and destructive, even in its last moments; but now, thankfully harmless. Unfortunately. Atlanta mourned the creature she feared and hated, for even if it was what kept her here, it was only doing its job. Worse still, she would have to perform a final desecration upon it before she could leave it behind.

Luckily, it had fallen mostly face-up, its chest reachable once she dragged its enormous arm out of the way. She climbed the body with her knife in hand, picked a spot, and started cutting. The skin was so thick, so tough, that she couldn’t even give it the dignity of a clean butchery. Atlanta was forced to hack into its chest, knife arcing from above her head to its sternum several times before she could start to make a hole with which to search for the keys. It was every bit as miserable and disgusting as she knew it was going to be, and her time spent with Relmyna didn’t prepare her nearly as much as she had hoped.

The keys nicked her fingers before she could recognize them as keys. She saw why when she pulled them out; one was practically a weapon, with sharp spikes as the teeth and a gnarled metal head. The other was a less violent, more artistic sort of thing. Even less of a key than its twin, with its abstract shape straying farther from what a key usually was.

Light from behind her glinted off of them, and Atlanta immediately feared Relmyna’s wrath. No, it was someone else, holding an umbrella in one hand and a lantern in the other. They tipped the umbrella back ever so slightly, and Atlanta recognized the older man that greeted her at the portal, so long ago. Haskill.

“Ah,” He managed to sound both surprised and utterly unimpressed, as well. “I see you’ve made quite the mess, here.”

“The hell do you want,” Atlanta snapped back, tired and fed up beyond all reason. Haskill sneered in response.

“I was _going_ to be of some help to you, but if you’re going to be rude I’m just going to leave.” He didn’t leave though, it seemed, as he watched Atlanta climb down from the Gatekeeper’s corpse to engage him face to face.

“I ain’t really in the mood. As you can see.” Atlanta gestured to the blood that was slowly but surely being washed off of her by the downpour of rain.

“I will be brief. First of all, my Lord congratulates you on your success. He found that final struggle _quite_ entertaining.”

 _“Wait,”_ Atlanta felt a chill crawl up her spine. “He’s been watching me?”

On cue, the rain quickly stopped; leaving an eerie silence in the dark.

“Secondly,” Haskill pointedly ignored her question, “you hold in your hands the keys to the gates of Mania and Dementia. On your left, you will find that the golden key leads to Mania. On the right lies Dementia, which reflects the key of iron. The land is divided into opposites, but it is your choice which one you may or may not fall into favor with. Your free will takes precedence. Should it be your will to seek the city of New Sheoth in the far east, my Lord would like an audience with you.”

“If that’s my will t’do as such,” Atlanta replied with a hardened tone, her emotions mixed but wholly unpleasant towards the idea.

“You’d be surprised.” Haskill briefly had the slightest hint of humor to his voice. “I would suggest you make your decision quickly, though. Neither of us will want to face Miss Verenim’s reaction to this bloodshed.”

“Oh. Shit.” Was all Atlanta could say to that.

She didn’t bother to bid the strange man farewell; he merely disappeared in a gentle fade into smoke behind her as she began a mad dash up the stairs. This was it. This was the escape she was looking for. Finally, she was free. She didn’t even care where she ended up. She could be killed or eaten as soon as she stepped outside and she would have been thankful to have died a free mer, at last.

Atlanta didn’t take note of the door she went through. She just went to one and fumbled with the keys in the dark until one of them fit. As she opened the door, a rush of cool, fresh air greeted her, and whipped away the tears welling in her eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

Atlanta picked a direction and simply ran into the darkness. With the clouds of the ending storm still lingering, it was too dark to tell exactly what her surroundings were. Fumbling over rocks and trees, wading through tall grass and bushes; the more ground she could put between herself and what she did, the better.

Exhaustion eventually slowed her down, as the world around her began to fill in with the light of an approaching dawn. She walked along an road that cut through a forest of mature mushroom trees. Birds began singing; something that she never heard in the Fringe. Walls no longer dominated the horizon before her, so now she could see the faint outline of distant mountains. There really was a whole other world out there, all along.

The sun began to touch the tips of the mushroom trees, lighting up their intensely orange and yellow caps, mimicking the sun they were turned towards. The largest ones were as big as Valenwood trees; so overgrown and ancient that their roots and offshoots had helped shape the landscape into what it was. That is to say, difficult. Large parts of the main road surrendered to the overgrowth of the forest, and less-established dirt roads had filled in the gaps. Atlanta took a chance, and ventured down one that still had old footprints going down it.

The more she ventured into this new territory, the more Atlanta noticed how lush and alive the world around her was now. Everything was green; vibrant, spring-like green, with splashes of color from alien flowers and new variations of fungi. The saplings of the mushroom trees were small and green, their caps folded into a bulb that smelt strongly sour. A sprawling vine that bore large and tempting fruit was abundant, and Atlanta was wary of how edible any of this stuff really was. She hadn’t seen most of these plants in the Fringe.

The road she chose, fortunately enough, led to civilization. Of a sort. Remnants, at least; run-down shelters and unfinished foundations, similar to what made up most of Passwall. It had been furnished into an encampment that seemed empty, complete with a fire-pit that had been thoroughly used. Atlanta kept her distance; she still had some adrenaline in her. She had no idea what she’d run into. For all she knew, her forcing entry into the isles meant she’d be a threat.

After cautiously circling the camp, it appeared to be thoroughly empty. Suspiciously so. It had been used, just not recently. The firepit had long since been put out, and was disgusting mush after being rained on. The shelters were shoddy, but intact. The most ‘complete’ one was three walls and a roof, and the other a roof and little else on a foundation of stilts. There were no indications of personal possessions. No food and only a few pieces of basic furniture. Most importantly: there was an unused bedroll.

Atlanta knew better than to trust such a suspiciously convenient setup. This had to have been a trap… and if it was, well. They got her. Caution be damned; if someone was going to kill or rob her in her sleep, they wouldn’t get shit off of her, anyways.

 

The sun was high in the sky when its rays peered into the open front of the shelter, and shone right in Atlanta’s face. She awoke to a throbbing headache and a protesting, empty stomach. Weary and dehydrated, she picked through the few boxes and barrels left around the area, but found no useful supplies. Whoever stayed here last must have picked up anything around. Her closest bet for breakfast would be the local plant life, but… did she really want to risk that?

The fruit-bearing vines she had seen around looked the most promising. The fruit was a pale lavender mottled with darker purples, pear-shaped and covered in a lightly fuzzy peel. Atlanta sliced one open experimentally, and found the insides to be as soft and juicy as a grape. It tasted as delicious as it looked; and quenched her thirst as well as filled her stomach. It had to have been the sweetest thing she tasted in years.

Atlanta saw no reason to leave the comfort of this little setup right away. Where would she go? The city, as the Madgod’s servant had advised? She thought about it, as she began making herself at home in the camp. The first thing that came to her mind was that she’d face some sort of punishment for the Gatekeeper’s death. That was Sheogorath’s son also, wasn’t it? Would Relmyna want to see her head on a pike for it? No, that wouldn’t be creative enough. Whatever Relmyna would want to do would surely be much worse.

The urge to explore overwhelmed the comfort of the camp, so Atlanta spent the later afternoon walking a perimeter, taking in her surroundings. Nearby, a smooth and eroded rocky outcrop had formed over giant, ancient roots. Paths were cut into the gaps like a winding maze, and it was difficult to tell just how far it spanned. In the the direction she came from, Atlanta could see the distant walls of the Fringe, now put into perspective of just how small and isolated it was. It was surrounded by an ocean she could faintly hear even within the walls. How far did that span? Was there more of this realm, beyond it? At least the flat horizon of the sea didn’t feel like a barrier set against her.

In the Fringe, Atlanta had the distraction of other people to quell her restlessness. Here, she was alone, and fully content with it. Even if it was painful knowing Jayred never got to see this. She tried not to dwell on alternate scenarios running through her mind; what would have happened if she had wrestled that knife away from him. What she could have done if she had been just a little swifter, or just a little stronger. A little less hesitant. There was no use in dwelling on it, not here.

When evening set in, the setting sun revealed a sky even more beautiful than the one she had seen in the Fringe. What caused this difference, Sheogorath’s whims? It looked like the sky had been painted with constellations and stardust, with blooms of color adding a sense of awesome depth to the sky above her. It had the same sense of infinite scale that the one on Nirn had, but everything felt so much more in reach. Like the universe had been laid out to her; not mockingly, but invitingly. People here just… lived with this? Was it so commonplace that if she were to try and talk to people about it, would they not understand her awe?

Atlanta knew keenly that she didn’t have a ‘plan’ after this. The concept of living life in the long term simply escaped her. Maybe in a sense, she associated escape from the Fringe with death in its finality. With its end to suffering. It was hard to see beyond that suffering. What was it like to just live your life freely, anyways?

 

On the dawn of her second day in the Isles proper, Atlanta decided to explore the rest of what the road had to offer. Perhaps she’d reach that fabled city, or maybe some other source of civilization. She needed a job; not for money, but for a source of distraction. A little bit of purpose to her life.

Feeling that certain kind of emptiness in a place that was every bit a paradise had to be Sheogorath’s last great joke played upon her. She made a point to become lost in her curiosity. She wandered the rocky maze she found at length, getting so lost she had to climb onto the tops of the rocks and navigate her way out from there. She huffed more than a few thick clouds of pollen made by the local flora that gave her a buzz. A few more edible looking things were sampled, and luckily only one or two of them made her noticeably ill. All the while, the scenery was gorgeous. The road was easy on her feet. The sun and the breeze were pleasant. Something had to happen.

The most trouble Atlanta had found was from a few baliwogs that tried to ambush her while passing a lake, and a seemingly sentient tree that intimidated her into giving its favored copse a wide berth. She wasn’t equipped for a fight; an ambush on her terms, __maybe__. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. For a place so overgrown, so teeming with life, the road seemed to be clear and maintained. Of course, she would think about that idly just when something began rearing up just ahead of her.

A man-sized, vibrantly colored creature lunged seemingly out of thin air, and only gave Atlanta just enough time to tumble to the ground as it attempted a pounce. Her attempt to roll to her feet was sluggish, with her head still slightly swimming from all the damn mushroom bulbs she sniffed throughout the day. The monster also seemed slow to react; it landed heavily on its hands and knees, digging up cobblestones as it scrambled to move its bulk back into a deliberate pouncing position.

Understanding that it had a very specific way of hunting, Atlanta thought she could see an opening to attack it. Then, it went and fucking turned invisible.

Blending into the road with only some slight distortion to give away its mass. Atlanta could only keep cautiously moving around where she thought the creature was, hoping that she could anticipate its next lunge as she readied her bow.

It lunged again, and this time she could dodge with a little more finesse. She fired an arrow into its back as it was momentarily prone, but it seemed to do little to faze it. The pattern continued. It wasn’t… very smart, was it? At least, it didn’t seem to count on prey smarter than a baliwog.

The third time it tried to pounce, Atlanta was ready. She ducked under it as it flew at her, and got the perfect angle to stick her knife in its ribs. The creature made an almost human grunt, crumpling but not going still when it hit the ground.

The monster writhed in pain, and Atlanta saw just how humanoid it really was, down to the way it clutched the mortal wound she gave it. It made her sick. She knocked back another arrow, and aimed at its head.

It would have been easy; the creature was already dying. This sort of thing used to come easy for her, at least for animals. This wasn’t a person… right? It attacked her, after all.

Again, someone else made the final decision for her. Her hackles raised as she could only watch someone else’s arrow bury itself in the creature’s skull. The light color of the arrow made her heart skip a mortified beat, until she could see how fine and polished the design was. The shaft was a pearly white, and the fletching was a golden feather; almost unnecessarily fancy for a potshot at a downed monster.

As Atlanta gawked, the owner of the arrow strode silently over to collect it. They were much… _much_ bigger than she was. Bigger than the creature, even. A broad-shouldered warrior in full golden armor, their bow and quiver matching the arrow in its opulence. They yanked their property out of the creature’s skull easily.

“Another one,” they noted in a husky, feminine voice. Atlanta flinched as the sound of armor shifting became audible behind her.

Two other golden giants approached the scene. They all seemed to be women, as Atlanta could only glimpse their faces before averting her eyes in embarrassment. All of them had beautiful, almost uncannily flawless faces; mask-like in their stoic expressions and golden skin. At first glance, they looked almost entirely made of metal. In truth, they seemed to have skin that had a very metallic luster in the sunlight. In uniforms of intricately engraved golden plate, they looked to be some kind of guard patrol. Judging from their inhuman appearance, they were Daedra.

These must have been the Golden Saints Atlanta heard so much about.

“That one doesn’t count,” one of them admonished their companion, “it was already dead.”

“It could’ve gotten up again,” the archer shrugged, “so that’s another point for me, thank you.”

The Saint that contested her grumbled, but didn’t stop the archer from putting a notch in the gilded plate of her own bracer.

The Daedra barely acknowledged Atlanta as they fell back into a marching formation, heading down the road. There were a hundred questions she had stuck to the back of her throat, but the Saints had already left; absorbed in their patrol and the game they had apparently made of it.

 

Fortunately, that was about the most excitement Atlanta got while on the road. As the road began to skirt around valleys and inch its way up foothills, the mountains she had seen in the distance became more tangible. The road became more of a chore to travel, as it became increasingly uphill.

On the sides of the road, she would occasionally pass dead things; strange creatures that had crossed paths with the guard patrol. It was unpleasant to see, though Atlanta appreciated being a civilian on the road, instead of one of the threats they would have cut down. It was still weird, thinking about it. Being a civilian.

Another one of those shelters laid just off to the side, once again convenient as the sun started to set. Only this time, it wasn’t abandoned. An older man had made himself at home there, tending to a pot over the firepit. He acknowledged Atlanta with a wave, and she was drawn to the prospect of a friendly soul on her journey, at last.

The man was sunburnt on his bare shoulders, telling of a long day travelling without a shirt on his back. He was filthy, unkempt and sweaty, but had a delighted smile on his face at the arrival of company.

“Come, come, have a seat; you’re just in time for dinner. You never know when it may be your last, so its always nice to spend a meal in good company.”

“True enough,” Atlanta noted the fatalistic remark, but could only agree with it.

“I’m Yngvar, the Wanderer. Though, folks call me Yngvar Doom-Sayer these days, on account of my mission.” He handed his guest a bottle of warm beer.

“Name’s Atlanta, sera. I’m guessin’ you’re ‘bout to tell me that mission of yours, huh?”

“Hah, its not one of zealotry, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Yngvar looked Atlanta in the eyes, and she found a certain, wise clarity in his.

“I’m a Doomsayer, and what I’m saying is true; the world is about to be destroyed. Some people are frightened by this, or they despair, or even try to deny the truth of what I say; but my message is actually one of comfort.”

Atlanta felt a chill, out of place in the humid, summery air. Yngvar watched the fire licking the bottom of his pot.

“The world is ending, and we can't do anything about it. Once you accept that, you'll be at peace, like me.”

Atlanta shrugged his statement off. “Well, the world better not fuckin’ end; I only just got here.”

The Doomsayer chuckled warmly, and seemed to note the reaction she wasn’t showing.

“Its really nothing to worry about. Do not despair over life lost, rejoice over life __lived!__  Enjoy the life you’re living now. Find comfort in powerlessness, friend.”

Atlanta was left to mull over his words, as Yngvar served up two bowls of hot stew. He seemed… truly content, at least, as he enjoyed the simple life he lived in the moment. Atlanta wasn’t a stranger to that sort of mantra. In the land of the Mad, surely all sorts of doomsayers preached a similarly content finality to their fate.

 

As the sun set over another day in this supposed paradise, Atlanta humored Yngvar’s belief in the apocalypse. After discovering what he considered to be the date of the Isles’ destruction, he began traveling the realm to warn everyone he could of their impending doom. Over time, preaching the end of the world became more of a bittersweet routine to his life, wandering in a loop around the Isles. People began to rely on his visits to aid in errands; he showed Atlanta a sack of letters that he had accrued just during this circuit. He was glad to help, even knowing that their time was quickly drawing to a close. Nihilism was not apathy, in his eyes; it was merely a different kind of peacefulness.

Atlanta was not convinced that the world was ending, but she had a hunch that there was deeper, more personal meaning behind his preaching. Every man or mer’s life was their own world, and anything could feel like the end of that world to some. It was none of her business.

Yngvar caught Atlanta staring up at the sky, mesmerized as always, as the darkness of night revealed the universe beyond them. He gave her a knowing smile. “How do you like it here so far, friend?”

“Its… I dunno,” It was hard for Atlanta to believe she was here, still. Perhaps even moreso than when she was in the Fringe, clinging to life. “I like it better than the Fringe, that’s fer damn sure.”

Yngvar grinned, nodding in understanding. “I remember when I stayed in there. It had to have been… Lord, I can’t even count how many years its been since. Time is a bit odd here, if you couldn’t tell.”

“No shit.”

“You’ll like it here, I think. You come to the Isles when you have nowhere else to go.” Yngvar had a reassuring tone, as he also gazed up at the night sky. “I thank my Lord every day that I got to see this place before its all destroyed. Meet its people, see the beauty it has to offer. Knowing that its finite makes it all the more special, I think.”

Atlanta’s brow furrowed as she ruminated on his words. Something was out of place. He wasn’t mentioning something important.

“... Do you think Sheogorath knows the world is going to end?”

For a moment, she almost regretted saying that, and taking all the light and life out of Yngvar’s expression. His clear and intelligent eyes clouded with troubled thoughts unspoken.

“If he does, he speaks nothing of it,” Yngvar admitted. “I’ve tried to show him my findings, give him my book on the ruins I’ve excavated. I didn’t get much more than his chamberlain’s cease and desist.”

Atlanta wasn’t surprised. Though even in her skepticism, she didn’t want to pry at this man’s faith and pick apart his beliefs. Yngvar seemed to gather his composure as he considered her question, and returned to his usual, serene smile.

“I’m sure that, whatever his role is in this cataclysm, its for a good purpose. Every thousand years, this world is destroyed and rebuilt again; its like how a forest flourishes after a fire, don’t you think?”

“Like Vvardenfell,” Atlanta quietly noted, “this place reminds me of it. ‘S nice.”

Yngvar’s eyes lit up. “You travel a lot, friend?”

“…Used to.”

Atlanta dodged eye contact, clamming back up to watch the starlit clouds in the horizon move on their own path. In truth, the Isles reminded her more of vibrant dreams of her warped memories of Morrowind, if anything. The bits and pieces left of her nostalgia that she clung to, that were left to fester in her mind when nothing was left to occupy it. In the back of her mind, she feared that she’d have to wake up from this dream, too.

 

Yngvar and Atlanta’s respective journeys were in opposite directions; so at the break of dawn they said their goodbyes, and the Doomsayer imparted last minute advice and supplies to the sleepy-eyed supplicant.

“You’ll be entering the city through the Bliss district; its a real nice place, but expensive. You should find Dumag if you’re fine with smith work; she’s been looking for some help, last I heard.” Yngvar put a few hasty charcoal marks on a jumbled city map for Atlanta. She couldn’t make heads nor tails of it, but she was thankful.

“Crucible will be cheaper to stay in, but its… well. You’ll see. Bernice has nice rooms though, despite what they might say about the cleanliness.”

Atlanta had no idea who these people were, but she took his word for it. Yngvar clapped a weathered hand on her back, making her thin frame wobble. “Remember to enjoy this world while it lasts! Walk with our Lord, friend.”

“...Right.”

The morning sun was especially warm, so high into the ridge. Behind her, Atlanta could see the mostly-obscured lowlands that lay to the north, between the hills the main road cut through. Red-orange mushroom caps dotted the dark green, textured cover of tree-tops.

The peak of the ridge was only a short walk uphill, before mercifully dipping into a winding road down the slop. Before her, Atlanta could finally see the city she sought out, close enough that she could likely reach it before noon. New Sheoth; the largest and most established city of the Shivering Isles, known only to her as the source of spare news and gossip, and lifelines of supplies from trade caravans. Its imminent walls reminded her of both the Fringe and Bravil, in the sense that they were both meant to contain, rather than protect.

The road wound tightly around eroded rock formations, with further, man-made railings and precautions taken to keep travellers from gaining too much momentum on the way down. Judging from the frequent skid-marks in the cobblestones, the road didn’t get any easier despite being so close to the city. As a single traveller, Atlanta had the advantage of finding stable footing. The occasional wrecked cart or fallen shipment found along the road didn’t have such luck.

The sun was still young and the dew on the ground was just barely dried, by the time the road settled into a less treacherous incline. When Atlanta passed the last rocky shelf hugging the path, she saw the enormity of the city laid out for her. Much like Bravil, the walls of the city could not contain the growth of its population, so a crust of wooden docks and buildings had formed along ancient masonry. A lake that seemed to be a massive moat curling around the city was the site of its own fishing dock, complete with small boats out on the water.

Peeking out over the walls, buildings seemed to be built onto and over the fortifications themselves, contributing to the patchwork look that Atlanta noted was a staple of the isles. A mixture of ancient ruins, and more recent settlers, adding onto the predecessors, and so on and so forth. The road ended at the massive gates, which were proudly wide open for the people to come and go as they pleased. Such a gesture put Atlanta at ease, deep down.

 

The greeting of a fountain depicting Sheogorath surrounded by a harem of mermaids was an understatement of the kind of rich excess Bliss seemed to embody. Atlanta felt small and disgusting while milling around the perfectly decorated market square; with its manicured flowerbeds and flowering vines complimenting the mossy stone buildings. Everyone present had a fashion sense all their own, clashing with one another while adding to an artistic aesthetic as a whole. Indeed, artists seemed to be commonplace here. Buskers played pleasant music in the background, as a few plein-air artists captured their own visions of the city life before them. The buildings were tall, and brightly painted to hide their patchwork structure; muti-tiered and connected by narrow walkways and bridges.

If Bravil could be anything but a gutter, this place would have been it. The similarity brought a bittersweet nostalgia to Atlanta, who quickly found herself overwhelmed. This place felt too rich for her blood, too overstimulating with all the color and life that was packed densely into its streets. Ducking into a shop, she found it mercifully quiet enough for her to catch her breath.

The smell of a running forge was immediately apparent, though the enormous smelter in front of her was currently not in use. Stained glass windows let colored sunlight pour into the site of a well-stocked smithy, with a neatly printed sign politely asking Atlanta to head downstairs for business.

An Orc hammered away happily in the lit forge below. When Atlanta gave a polite cough, the Orc's tongs were almost flung away dramatically as they spun around to meet her. She was dressed plainly for work; with Maniac flair showing in her thick black hair, braided into an updo garnished with local flowers. Her face was sweat-streaked, stubbled, and beamed a smile warm enough to melt alloy better than a forge ever could.

“Well, good morning to you, handsome!” the Orc’s smooth baritone had an inflection befitting a girl more like Nanette, than an Orcess working a smithy. Her eyes lit up, looking Atlanta up and down. Subconsciously, Atlanta tried to stand a little straighter and prouder. She called her _handsome_ , after all.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here, before! I’m Dumag gra-Bonk; what can I do for you today?” Dumag’s introduction sounded practiced, but not fake in its cordiality. Atlanta was startled somewhat, but not put off by the rather un-Orcish demeanor.

“I’m, ah, fresh meat from the Fringe, ma’am. Th’name’s Atlanta. A bloke the name a’ Yngvar said you were lookin’ for work?”

Dumag chuckled knowingly. “Well, I guess he wasn’t lying when he said he’d find somebody! Funny old loon, that‘n.”

She gave Atlanta a warmly appraising look, eyebrows raising as her gaze fell on the definition in her guest’s bare arms. “You know anything about smith’s work, tourist? As much as I’d like to, I can’t hire _every_ hunk strolling into my store.”

Atlanta just _subtly_ flexed the muscles of her arms. Definitely subconsciously. Yep. “I know enough t’be a fair apprentice, if you want one, ma’am.”

Atlanta had never seen an Orc look ‘coy’ before, but Dumag could certainly convey it. “Cute. I suppose I could use someone to help tidy up around here. A girl can only do so much in a big place like this by herself.”

Dumag dunked the metal she was folding into a water bucket in reach, and a sizzling sound filled the room. “I was the apprentice up until about a week ago, you know. So as you can see, the position is open. You good with people, dear?”

“I was a bartender up until recently, I guess.” Atlanta shrugged.

“Good enough! I’ll need someone working customers on the second level, too. You’re hired!” Dumag beamed, and ripped off a glove so Atlanta could shake her bare hand.

Her grip crushed Atlanta’s smaller fist, who squeezed back as hard as she could in turn. “I’m guessin’ the torch was passed on from the last smith here, huh?”

Dumag’s smile went from broad and mirthful, to small and bittersweet. “Mourning isn’t a Maniac’s way, so I’m going to try and keep this ship running as smoothly as I can. It’s what she would have wanted, after all.”

“Besides,” she gestured to the shop at large around them, “now it means I get to decorate this musty old place how I want! My business, my rules!”

“That’s the spirit,” Atlanta nodded.

“Guess you’ll be taking my old room, then. Oh, this is exciting,” Dumag giggled, rubbing her hands together. “My boss never let me have boys over! How _scandalous_.”

Atlanta felt her face grow hot. “Ah, yeah, about that, uh… I’m not… I’m not a man, miss.”

Dumag flinched like a startled cat, eyes going wide as her own ears turned pink. “Oh, my apologies! I just thought…” she paused, hesitated, and decided to drop whatever she was going to say entirely. “You know what, never mind.”

-

It was hard for Atlanta to imagine herself on the other side of the Isles already, let alone in a city. The sensory overload of Bliss at large was tempered somewhat from the view of a balcony, above the busy hub of the market district. She scouted out this comfortable little spot, only reachable by climbing a few rickety walkways and trespassing on other people’s verandas. If you wanted to get anywhere quickly in New Sheoth, you couldn’t be afraid of heights. That was another thing she found it had in common with Bravil.

A city. A job. A fresh start. Atlanta still waited to wake up from her dream. This world seemed too good to be real; something had to be amiss. Perhaps, Yngvar’s prophecy of doom really was going to happen. Would it happen sooner, knowing she was happy? It was hard to be properly pessimistic, while the city continued to thrive well into the evening.

Lanterns were lit, on top of lampposts and strung around balconies. A nearby bar had become so busy that patrons had spilled out into the tables set on a walkway wrapping around it, taking their music and food with them. Golden Saints patrolled, head and shoulders above everyone else and removed from the revelry of the mortals. Atlanta watched a couple of them stationed near the fountain receive dinner from a market stand packing up for the night.

It was hard to see this place as an asylum of the Mad. Not even with the face of Sheogorath still overwhelming decorative motifs, greeting people at the gates and in every doorway. Even so, Atlanta could see the spires of a castle jut out beyond the towering buildings of Bliss. The only place devoid of the patchwork architecture of the city, distinctly its own design; regal and starkly silver under the starlight. The Palace of Sheogorath, which she still had an invitation to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just one pic this time, sorry!


	7. Chapter 7

The next few days had been a blur. Dumag kept Atlanta busy, teaching her what she knew along the way. Being a blacksmith in the Isles meant you had to work with scrap rather than raw alloy, with the exception of the native resources. Dumag proudly showed off samples of her mentor’s work; delicate, lustrous scale and platemail made of amber from the mushroom trees. It was light, durable, and worked well against piercing and slashing, though it was hard to collect and even harder to craft into something usable.

Madness ore was far more plentiful; the solidified product of the souls of the mad. Dumag refused to work with it, for religious reasons. Many of the citizens saw the ore as sacred, worn only by the consorts that forged it into their equipment. It was Cutter, the Crucible smith, who was just starting to break the taboo and forge the ore for the common folk. Another transgression added to the list of complaints Dumag had of her. Which, she voiced. Often.

Atlanta only got bits and pieces of the story. ‘Cutter’ and Dumag shared their mentor, though Cutter’s Demented predilections inevitably brought her to the other side of the city. Whether the animosity was petty regional rivalry, or something hurtful one of them did, was hard to tell. From the sound of some of these city folk, you’d think someone from the opposite side killed their family pet.

Atlanta couldn’t understand the tensions between the two regions. They were all mad here, weren’t they? Then again, she was still new. Dumag took her for a Maniac, for emerging from the Mania Gate. Atlanta could only say that she didn’t know which gate she went through. It was dark; she could have cared less then, and she could care less now.

 

While Atlanta had experienced Mania and Bliss the most so far, she couldn’t say that meant she would grow to hate Dementia, or Crucible. Crucible itself was the polar opposite of Bliss; while Bliss was bursting with life and energy, Crucible seemed somberly empty. Bliss had the look of a poor quarter that had been lovingly restored through patchwork and decoration. Crucible however, came off to her as a noble’s district turned derelict. The buildings were high and imposing manors, uniformly built from carved masonry. Moldering, damp and stained from the standing sewerwater, but still retaining a stubborn nobility about it. It was Bravil, if Bravil had ever belonged to the rich and been left to rot.

The scavengers she helped supply in Passwall sold their finds in Crucible, and a few modestly congratulated her on reaching the other side. The Mazken, Udico, was markedly absent; her time as a civilian having run its course.

The scavs’ haul was slim, this time. They were more than happy to complain about why. With the Gatekeeper dead, adventurers stopped dying at a regular rate. Now, they resorted to picking clean those found on the roads. With the opening of the physical gate in Niben Bay, tourists and fortune-seekers were at an all-time high; and without the monstrous guardian, they could go where they pleased. Atlanta tried to change the subject quickly when the complaints were directed towards whatever sod killed the Gatekeeper.

“Been seeing more harassers on the roads these days,” a tar-stained scav noted, counting coins for change. “Lots of those Stendarr types running into the wilderness. They don’t last long, of course, but its annoying diggin’ them up out of the swamp.”

“Vigilants of Stendarr?” Atlanta made a sour face. She knew of them. The very sort of people the Gatekeeper was supposed to weed out. It was her fault they were here, wasn’t it.

“You can tell its them ‘cos they’ve got that real good steel n’ silver on ‘em. We’d have a bumper crop if the Gatekeeper was still around, I swear.”

“You’d think they’d shut that gate down if this was happening, though.”

The scav shrugged. “It’s Sheogorath’s will. Somethin’ about a champion. He’s been looking for a while, but I guess none of these fresh bodies are up to snuff.”

Atlanta tried to ignore the sickly feeling in her stomach. It cropped up more and more often as time went on. Some undercurrent of anxiety and fathomless dread that crept up on her in quiet moments. Sometimes, it felt like the world was ending.

Maybe it was just a Dementia thing.

At least in Bliss, she could take a swig of potent local brew, sniff a bit of those native spores, and forget about the dark parts of her mind. Nothing was going to stop her from enjoying her freedom, now. The end of the world could damn well wait.

* * *

 

“I got an important order in,” Dumag announced over breakfast. Atlanta acknowledged her with a thoughtful hum, absorbed in shoveling food into her mouth.

Dumag brandished an envelope. The handwritten address was so fine and over-embellished in its calligraphy that it registered as nonsense. The wax seal, when it was unbroken, would have been a stamp of a butterfly. The letter’s paper was so white and clean, it was likely more expensive than Atlanta’s entire life.

“To the current title of Master Smith of Bliss,” Dumag read with an sarcastic, pompous tone, “we offer our congratulations on your promotion and request the forging of a single silver spoon, to add to Lord Sheogorath’s table settings. Please deliver by hand from your assistant forthwith.”

Atlanta swallowed wrong, and gagged a bit.

Dumag just laughed. “Now ain’t that something else? Sheogorath himself wants a piece of my work. I wonder if my old boss had to do this, too?”

Atlanta’s eyes watered as she tried not to sound like she was dying of choking. She wasn’t, really, but it certainly felt like it. Not wanting to seem rude, she mustered a congratulatory thumbs up.

“Oh, this will be fun. Haven’t made tableware since I was a babe,” Dumag was already slipping on her gloves eagerly. “Whaddaya say, ‘Lanta? You wanna take a trip up to the Palace?”

“This sounds… awfully specific.” Atlanta knew why, but she didn’t want to draw attention to it, either. Not that Dumag noticed, picking out what silver she could from their scrap supplies.

“He’s a god! Gods are… super specific, I guess. Cryptic, if you will.” She smirked, flashing her sanded-down tusks in a grin. “You’ll get to see a lot of consorts roamin’ about, you know… maybe even some of his concubines…”

“I ain’t _that_ predictable,” Atlanta pouted. Though, deep down, she knew she kind of was.

 

The spoon Dumag crafted took a day to forge, counting her time spent engraving it, and setting a sliver of lustrous amber into the handle. The result was beautiful, and quintessentially Maniac. Certainly fancier than anything Atlanta put into her mouth, but perhaps it would be just fancy enough for a god.

Atlanta, frankly, dreaded having to deliver it. She didn’t consider herself as having the fear of the gods put into her, but there was something… wrong about this. Perhaps she was imagining things. Sheogorath couldn’t want _her_ , specifically; she wasn’t a champion. She wasn’t even the one who took down the Gatekeeper, though she certainly felt the guilt of it.

Dumag thought it was a treat; a novelty, as if someone could just casually approach the Madgod if they so wished. Atlanta noted people seemed to treat him more like some sort of king than a god. Not even those on Vvardenfell seemed to be so relatively casual about their gods. Nevertheless, She lightly pressured Atlanta to at least drop it off at the door.

The walk to the Palace was just long enough for the anxiety to really, truly sink in. This was a Daedric Prince. More than just an Aureal or Mazken, which had become familiar sights for her over time. A god, a living god. A god known for fucking with mortals, most of all. Box with the opulent spoon in hand, Atlanta could only walk a dead man’s walk through the city.

The Palace was reached through a winding series of paths that led up above Bliss. The palace itself overlooked everything, so of course it was going to be tedious to reach. The courtyard was the truest example of the natural split between regions; the lands so starkly contrasting that the grass and dirt was markedly different on either side of the path to the Palace. The Palace itself resembled the pictures she had seen of it; with a shining, well-kept Mania wing, and an overgrown and disused Dementia wing.

Nobility walked freely in the Courtyard of the god. A few of the lavishly dressed Demented huddled together, away from prying eyes to whisper their secrets. Maniacs half-dressed in their finery smoked from massive hookahs that resembled sculptures in their own right. Aureal and Mazken walked abreast as they kept watch. They didn’t seem too happy about it.

Atlanta’s heart hammered as she approached the entrance. The two doors silently urged her to pick a side, whether she liked it or not. Gods, she hated having to chose one or the other with _anything_ , really. The only deciding factor was that the Mazken at the Dementia door gave her a little less of a death glare than the Saint opposite of her.

The Daedra smiled politely at the scruffy, barely-washed visitor. Atlanta took a chance, and held out the package.

“Could you just, uh, deliver this? To him? So I don’t have to? Please, ma’am.”

The Mazken’s smile immediately fell flat. “Do I look like a delivery girl to you?”

Well, it was worth a shot. Atlanta was urged to enter just a little faster than she was ready for, to keep from upsetting the guard any further.

 

The first thing that hit Atlanta upon entering, was that it looked a lot bigger on the inside. The second was that she wasn’t sure exactly what she expected, but it certainly didn’t involve a tree.

The tree was an undeniable fixture of the room, dark and twisted, overgrown with native plants. Life seemed to spring forth from it like it was the true source of of the realm’s alien flora. Running water flowed from under its exposed roots and through small canals that formed an undeniable path to Sheogorath.

The split of Mania and Dementia, down to the finest line, ended at his throne; so that each foot was on each side of the realm at all times. Not that he bothered to sit in it correctly. As Atlanta slowly made her way to the throne, she began to wonder what she really _did_ expect. After all this time having to see his damned face everywhere, it didn’t prepare her for the actual, living, breathing Daedra she was now forced to face.

He seemed a bit smaller than she thought he would be. Though, perhaps it was because the throne was so unnecessarily large. He draped over the stone arms of it in an extremely ungraceful manner; cane held loosely in hand, looking more comfortable in this state of being than Atlanta could ever manage. His purple and gold coat clashed perfectly with the red and green carpeting marking the regional split. He looked a bit too old to be wearing tight leggings like pants, as well.

His face was less menacing, or imposing, or even as thin as his various idolatry. But, the broad grin behind his beard and the glint in his Aureal eyes was unmistakable. It was him. Her tormentor. Her jailer. Her Lord.

“Sheogorath.”

Atlanta awkwardly took a knee at the foot of the steps leading to him, out of her ingrained manners. She wasn’t sure what to feel about him, still, but she wasn’t going to be rude. She held out the box with shaking hands.

“You- you ordered a spoon from the Missin’ Pauldron, right?”

Sheogorath’s chuckle broke the tension, echoing in the massive throne room. “Boy, that was fast, wasn’t it, Haskill?”

Atlanta gasped and nearly fell over as Haskill made his presence known, uncomfortably close to her, with a dour “Yes, my Lord.”

Now where the fuck did _he_ come from? Was he hiding behind the tree? Atlanta wasn’t particularly pleased to see him again. Sheogorath’s eyes lit up at his apparent chamberlain’s arrival for all of a second before snapping back to her.

“Well, you gonna just, sit there and stare at the carpet all day, or what?”

Atlanta nearly dropped the package, fumbling over the simple act of handing it to Haskill. The look he gave her was unreadable, but seemed wholly judgemental. Sheogorath righted himself in his seat with all the grace of a fat, lazy cat in order to properly leer at her.

“Now that that’s out of the way, we might as well discuss that Gatekeeper situation, shouldn’t we?”

Atlanta shook with unmitigated terror, all the blood leaving her face at the very mention of it.

“L-lord, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean t-”

“Save the beggin’ and the pleadin’ for when _y’really_ need my mercy!” Sheogorath barked. “You’ve made quite a mess in the Fringe, little mortal. Really, its quite impressive. Almost funny, if you think about it. Or sad. Mostly very, _very_ sad.”

Despite the cold and bitter regret that washed through Atlanta from those words, Sheogorath spoke them without a hint of mournfulness.

“Shame about it, really. He was a good boy. Ah, well, these things happen.”

He stood up to approach the mortal at his mercy, at the foot of the stairs. Atlanta got to her feet just in time to really flinch at how close he got; eye level with her purely because he stood on the last step.

“Of course you know, this means its on you to clean up this mess. I’ve got a lot of adventurers infestin’ my nice, adventurer-free Isles. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of these things once they get a taste of plunder? Worse than cockroaches, I swear.”

Sheogorath’s pupils dilated like those of a cat, as he regarded Atlanta like a mouse. “You know what you could do, for me? What you can do that will exonerate you of all your crimes, even the ones you don’t want to think about?”

Oh god, no. Please don’t make her go back t-

“You’re going to do a lil’ spring cleaning! For me!” Sheogorath announced happily, clapping his hands together. “At least, I think its spring. Is it spring, Haskill?”

“Late summer, actually. Almost tar season.” Haskill answered rigidly.

“Ehh, close enough. But you, dear mortal, are going to Xedilian!”

Sheogorath pointed a manicured finger against Atlanta’s chest. She briefly felt a new wave of anxiety, thinking about the sheer gravity that came with being touched by a god.

“Al… alright?”

“Alright! Its settled!! We’re starting Xedilian back up again!” Sheogorath announced, mostly to Haskill; who seemed physically unable to be impressed, or show any positive emotion whatsoever. He seemed to open his mouth in order to interject as the Daedra plopped himself back down in his seat, but thought better of it.

Sheogorath returned to re-drape himself on his throne. “You’re gonna have to uhhh, do some fiddlin’ with it, of course. Haskill can explain all that to you. He’s good at that; explaining, that is. Maybe not fiddlin’, haven’t seen him with a violin or nothin’.”

“My Lord,” Haskill spoke up with a much softer tone than usual, “Do you really think we should be focusing on that right now?”

“Of course!!!” Sheogorath bellowed back. “It’s foolproof. It’s always been foolproof. And you’re not a fool, are you, Atlanta?”

Atlanta shuddered. Of course he knew her name. He gave it to her.

“I try not t’be, Lord.”

“Fantastic!” Sheogorath kicked his feet in the air, belying his excitement. “Oh, you’re going to love it there, it was a happenin’ place back in the day!”

“Quite,” Haskill mumbled. Atlanta found him looking at her with an underlying resentment, behind his stoic expression.

“You will need the manual, of course. Not that you’ll be able to use it.” The corner of Haskill’s mouth ticked upwards very slightly when Atlanta shot him a glare in response. A book bound in red leather was produced out of thin air, and into his hand.

“Directions are also included. And I suppose you will need to have a detailed explanation?”

Atlanta wrenched the tome out of his hand. “I’ll fuckin’ _manage_.”

“Play nice, you two,” Sheogorath scolded halfheartedly, paying more attention towards trying to balance his cane on the end of his foot.

“You will also need to clear the place of its… squatting residents. Grummites, I believe.” Haskill grimaced slightly, thinking about them.

“Don’t worry about killin’ ‘em, by the way; they breed like flies!” Sheogorath added helpfully, and gave Atlanta a knowing look.

Haskill produced a two-pronged instrument of polished silver, holding it daintily between thumb and forefinger to drop on top of the book in Atlanta’s hands. “You will need the Attenuator to reactivate the power source-”

“Attenuator of Judgement,” Sheogorath corrected.

“Attenuator of Judgement,” Haskill echoed with a hint of distaste, giving Sheogorath a sideways glace. “Really, my Lord, that title is so unnecessary. It’s a tuning fork.”

“Things are unnecessary when I _say_ they’re unnecessary,” Sheogorath’s tone was serious, but he still smirked at his chamberlain mischievously. Once again, upon meeting Atlanta’s eyes again his face fell flat.

“Now then, little mer, do ye understand the sort of task I’ve set you to?”

“Yesser,” Atlanta mumbled, bowing her head in reverence as an excuse to not look him in his eerie eyes.

Sheogorath’s brow knitted, face for once matching the direness in his tone. “And are you up to this task, of which will test the merits of your mindfulness, and the quality of your mortal soul?”

Atlanta took to admiring the carpet at her feet stubbornly. She didn’t quite want to dwell on whatever he said. “I am, milord.”

Sheogorath stamped his cane against the floor, forcibly demanding her attention.

“Then why are you wasting my time?! Or your time? Don’t come back until you’ve got Grummite blood on your hands, and Xedilian’s song in your head. Run along now, shoo!”

The atmosphere around them got increasingly uncomfortable, though perhaps that was entirely Atlanta’s mounting anxiety. Questions and protests stayed on the tip of her tongue and refused to budge. She didn’t know how she managed to speak to him in the first place. At last, she could at least give into her instinct to get as far away from him as possible.

Sheogorath waved her off like she was any other delivery mer, and Haskill stared her down the entire length of the throne room as she hurried away. Manual in hand, heart in her throat.

 

The sound of the door closing echoed throughout the cavernous chamber, and once again they were alone. Haskill could finally relax, only to stiffen up again at Sheogorath’s voice.

“Sooo, what did you thiiink?” The Madgod leaned forward in his seat far enough to rest his chin on the head of his cane. Haskill crossed his arms defensively.

“A mite bit skittish, don’t you think?”

“Ehh, they all are, at first.” Sheogorath shrugged, and gave another final, thoughtful look towards the door.

* * *

 

There were a lot of ways that could have gone, rehearsed in Atlanta’s mind. Being given a task was… well, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Daedra do love ordering mortals on wild goose chases, don’t they?

Xedilian. She’d never heard of it, nor had she ventured anywhere near where it was. Looking at the map, it seemed to be clear on the other side of the realm. Great. The journey through the swamp would be longer and more arduous than the task itself.

Atlanta took her time to process the meeting, milling about in the courtyard in a state of numbness. Her nerves were still tightly wound, but she could begin to accept what had happened. Nobles and their servants went on in their daily lives around her, ignoring her common self. Consorts stood or patrolled in their set routes, posture perfect and intimidating. On the outside, it looked like any other castle, and people treated it as such.

Two of the several garden arrangements the paths skirted around were overgrown on both sides, culminating in a towering mass of vegetation. They seemed to be withered, perhaps from a few missed waterings. Atlanta thought little of it; until the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, and light caught something gleaming underneath the vines of the Dementia side’s growth. Something pale, and shining.

Curiously, she pulled back a handful of vegetation. To her horror, saw her reflection clearly in the opaque, crystalline obelisk underneath.


	8. Chapter 8

What was under those dying plants, and what had been in the ruins under the Fringe, had been a unpleasant worry in the back of Atlanta’s mind. There were many inexplicable things in the isles; why did this one feel so wrong?

There was no time to ask about this, let alone time to simmer down from visiting the palace. Dumag was unfortunately enthusiastic about Atlanta’s task; it was an honor to serve the Madgod, after all. Just as much as it was to survive meeting him.

“You’re going to need dungeon-delving gear, of course,” the smith began rifling through back catalogue pieces in her stock, whether Atlanta wanted them or not. “If you’re going to be killin’ in the name of the Madgod, you better represent the shop while you’re at it. Oh, I have an old shortsword I made here somewhere…”

Atlanta could only awkwardly stand behind her, taking armfuls of armor and supplies. “Y’know, I was hoping you’d talk me out of this. Hang my job over my head or somethin’. Anything. _Please_.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, I wouldn’t dream of getting in between you and him.” Dumag’s face lit up as she struck a jackpot in a crate. In the dim light of the storage room, the amber blade she drew still glimmered, though dimly.

 

“Hello, beautiful.” She crooned, and ran a calloused finger over the edge.

The sword was similar to an Imperial gladius, with a pure amber blade that still bore minuscule air bubbles deep inside. It made for a light weapon for the average wielder, but it still felt awkward in Atlanta’s hand. She had used a proper sword before, sure, but that was… many years ago. Dumag looked as proud as could be, seeing her work in use.

“Sooo? How does it feel?”

“Like its made outta kindlin’.” Atlanta gave a few experimental swings with ease, nearly hitting an armor stand in the process.

Dumag motioned to have the sword returned to her, and gave it another admiring inspection. “Nowadays I know to use an iron core to balance it better. Still: amber retains one hell of an edge. Maybe its not my best work, but you can probably still clear a ruin with it.”

Atlanta could see the expectations for her clearly in Dumag’s face. It just compounded the sickly, creeping dread that knotted the pit of her stomach.

“... I’ll do my best.”

* * *

 

The journey through Dementia wouldn’t be the most dire part of this errand, but it would be the most tedious. Atlanta was accustomed to warm, wet climes; she spent the better part of her life in some sort of tropical or marshy area. County Bravil, western Black Marsh, southern Vvardenfell. Dementia made her nostalgic with its familiarity. So much of the Isles felt like a distorted reflection on her past, that she wondered if Sheogorath did it on purpose. Should she be surprised?

Dumag refused to enter Crucible, let alone accompany Atlanta to the city gates into the Demented wilderness. The damned regional rivalry was starting to get on her nerves. It almost made her wish she was inclined towards a side in the first place, just to be blissfully unaware of how ridiculous it was. Trudging through the narrow alleyways of Crucible alone, Atlanta was left to stew in her feelings undistracted.

This was fucking _stupid_. Would he let her have no rest? Will the world end right when she thought she’d have her life back together? She didn’t even get her first salary yet, a pittance though it was. The stench of the swamp greeted her with open arms as soon as she exited the city gates, and Crucible’s statue of Sheogorath bore holes in her back with its glare.

The swampland mocked Atlanta, and the fading memories she had of Tamriel. Blackwood. The Bitter Coast. Shadowfen. She’d never see those places again, and she might as well get used to that.

The Low road wasn’t unpleasant, even if the trail through the marshes was dilapidated and occasionally missing altogether for stretches. Anticipating the wet terrain, Atlanta brought waders. When the fetid smell of fungi spores, pondscum and rotting Grummite egg sacs didn’t hit her nose, the fresh scent of recent rains was soothing. It was humid, but the occasional cool breeze complemented the warm, hazy atmosphere. It was overcast; though it was often so here, in contrast to the glaring sunlight of mania. Soft, grey light that filtered through the cloud cover, with the occasional ray of sun that peeked through to illuminate a strip of ever-present mist. The chorus of insects and other fauna ensured that silence would not trouble Atlanta, in her solitude. She could see this as home, perhaps.

The map proved unreliable, with a shaky grasp on which roads were still present. The sun was barely visible through the clouds, and hardly able to tell her which way was west. The best she could do was go in a straight enough line, and hope it took her to the western shores. It was an island after all, wasn’t it?

Very little made any effort to bother Atlanta on her hike, at least. A couple baliwogs lurking under a bridge spooked her, but she could chase them off without much of a squabble. The tree-like gnarl were ones she was advised to not make eye contact with, or touch any trees that they could see. The creaking, three-legged, thorny bushes with eyes patrolled in their ceaseless protection of Sheogorath’s forests without interruption. Atlanta hurried by them, head bowed, keeping away from any branch she could brush against and any twig that could snap underfoot.

The Grummites were harder to slip past. The Demented colonies were territorial, and often staked out roads close to their warrens. In the perpetual fog and occasional rains, it was a gamble to pick them off from a distance; a missed arrow only served to upset a scouting party blocking a natural arch over the trail. Atlanta thought fast, and used a few more shots to draw them further from the path for a quick getaway. She knew she wouldn’t always be able solve things so bloodlessly, but those moments of mercy felt like an act of rebellion in a sense. She didn’t want to kill for him. She didn’t even want to fight.

The journey took half a day longer than her first trek down Mania’s High Road, even though the map told her it would be less distance travelled overall. There were simply too many obstacles, in the end. By the time she reached what was hopefully the mark on her map, dusk was approaching, darkness tainting the sky behind her ominously. The impressive sky was no less beautiful in Dementia, but the cloud cover hid it nine times out of ten.

Xedillian was one of those moldering stone ruins Atlanta had seen strewn about. The ones that doomsayer had spoken of; the remnants of the Isles before some catastrophe struck. The telltale signs of Grummite occupation served as grim warnings at the entrance; totems of toothy faces, strings of trophy bones and discarded fishing nets. The encroaching darkness made it easier to setup a clean shot at the lone guard at the door. If anything, swift and clean kills felt less cruel. Easier to swallow.

But that wouldn’t always be the case. She’d have to use her sword eventually.

* * *

 

And, inevitably, she did. The ruin proper was crawling with the froglike beastmen, and all of them were more bloodthirsty than her. The amber shortsword worked well for their usually unprotected hides, especially with a freshly sharpened edge. Minimizing brutality is hard enough when its three, four, five versus one; sometimes you couldn’t help but disembowel someone a little.

The shed frog blood stunk, an undercurrent to the already unpleasant fishy odor of the dungeon. Nothing about the place was indicating its past function, even under all the dwellings and filth of the squatters. Some parts were sealed off behind iron grating, occasionally holding some softly glowing tiles on the floor. Traps, no doubt. Other parts of the dungeon wouldn’t open unless power was restored to the section.

The manual the chamberlain gave her probably would have described these features in detail, if she could read it. Of course, a Daedric Prince’s court would write solely in _Daedric_ ; a language she barely recognized past the letters A, S and V. Stubbornly, she referred to the diagrams and blueprints for context clues, instead. Without the text, she could only imagine the true use behind the unmistakable, silvery crystals it indicated as a key factor in the ruin’s purpose.

Those crystals; cold and foreboding in a way Atlanta couldn’t describe, were obsessed over by the Grummites here, too. They had gathered lose chunks of them to use in some religion of their own making. Their fascination wasn’t unfounded; the chunks hummed with power, and sparked with energy when placed back in their conduits. This was simple enough, so far. The less she had to deal with these things, the better.

Atlanta’s unease over them wasn’t helped by the centerpiece of the strange power system of the ruin. A pillar of the cursed material shot up from the masonry, with iron welded around it as if to try and tame it. It was unnaturally shaped, like a carved pillar rather than spikes of quartz, and it… _hummed_.

Atlanta’s stomach twisted as she grew closer to it. It was just. So... wrong, and yet… what _was_ that noise, anyways? It drew her in with such ease she felt frightened of herself before the obelisk. Her ear was nearly pressed against the cold crystal, when one of the previously locked portcullises opened up for the first time.

“Get away from that! Don’t you _dare_ touch it!” a feeble little Dunmer man staggered off of a glowing platform, a broom in hand as his only weapon. It took a moment of recognition for him to lower his guard down, blinking his cataract-clouded eyes in disbelief.

“Well I’ll be a scalon’s wife, you’re a _person_!”

“Last I checked, yeah,” Atlanta stumbled backwards from the obelisk. Relief seemed to hit the both of them with disarming force. The old mer’s face cracked in a desperate grin.

“My Lord, I thought the Grumm’ were having another one of their turf wars, with all the commotion out there. Don’t tell me you had to cut through them all by yourself!”

“Not by choice, no.” Atlanta felt a pang of sympathy, seeing how thin and frail the man was under his faded robes. “Were you… their prisoner?”

“Haha, oh, madness no! Well. Maybe a bit, more like a hostage situation, really.” He straightened himself out, still holding the broom at attention. “Ever since Sheogorath got that damn Gatekeeper, he stopped sending patrols to check in on me, so I’ve had to fend for myself for quite some time. It wasn’t that bad until that tribe decided the place was prime real estate. And when they dismantled the power conduit, well, there went any chances of escape!”

He shared a pained chuckle with himself, a flash of muted horror glancing across his face as he looked back on his situation. “Ah, but that’s not important. Welcome to Xedillian, friend!”

* * *

 

The parts of Xedillian its keeper had sequestered himself in reeked of his squalor, and reminded Atlanta of herself in more ways than one. Scratchmarks of passed days, or perhaps what he had assumed were days, filled a broad section of the walls. Carcasses of rats alluded to the meager ways he could keep himself alive. Atlanta was quietly mortified.

“Sheogorath really just left you to die in here?”

“What? No, no, Sheogorath wouldn’t let me just _die!_ ” The keeper chuckled incredulously. “I _made_ Xedillian! Its my purpose in life, my holy privilege! Well, it was. I can assure you, it’ll take far more than a few years of no food or water to kill a chosen of Sheogorath’s divine will.”

The keeper began to mess with an array of levers, and seemed to choke back a sob as there was a low, rumbling response from whatever machinery ran underneath their feet. “Marvelous! I’m guessing you put all the focus crystals back into place?”

“Aye,”

“Fantastic! Do you have the Attenuator of Judgement?”

Atlanta fumbled through her supplies for it. “Sure do. There was supposed t’be a manual to tell me what to do with but, uh. Can’t read Daedric. Honestly I’ve just been bullshitting my way through this place.”

“Not a problem, not a problem,” the keeper seemed to regard the attenuator with a awed reverence, holding it carefully in his withered hands. Its purpose was lost on Atlanta, but to him, it looked like the final piece to the puzzle of his life.

“Now, you might want to cover your ears for what I’m about to do.”

The eerie pillar of crystal was where it all began, after all. Atlanta was morbidly curious, and more than a little frightened for what may come next. The keeper gave the solid obelisk a tap, and elicited a low thrum from within its depths. He flicked the attenuator in turn, and the sound it made mixed seamlessly. Atlanta’s teeth chattered. The ground rumbled, and clouds of dust drifted from the ceiling. It took a couple tries to match the tones perfectly, but when they did, it was _excruciating_.

“It never gets easier, doesn’t it?” the keeper had a pained smile, his own teeth chattering. The attenuator vibrated violently in his hand, thrumming angrily. Energy sparked from within the obelisk as the tone subsided into a more mellow harmony, and the man-made attempts to harness it shuddered from the now steady current of power, coursing into the depths of the ruin.

The sound still unsettled Atlanta, but at least it didn’t feel like it would tear her head asunder anymore. The keeper let out a sigh of relief. The thrum of Xedillian was music to his ears.

“Alright, the resonator is up and running, the focus crystals are in place… now I just need to clean up a bit, and it’ll be like we never got shut down in the first place!”

“You’re uh, gonna actually get out of here too, right? Go back to civilization?”

“Pah,” the keeper waved off Atlanta’s concerns, “Sheogorath will send someone to check up on me again, I’m sure. Running this place is a full time job, you know.”

With power restored to the entire dungeon, the keeper could turn on one of the tiles once hidden behind sealed grating. A teleporter, emblazoned with Sheogorath’s mocking grin. He promised that it would spit her back out at the entrance with no problems.

Well, he was wrong.

Atlanta was knocked off her feet the moment the magic whisked her to her destination. The ruin groaned and shook under the palms of her hands, and the world itself seemed to tilt.

Bodies of grummites limply rolled down the inclines made by the floors giving out in front of her; and were torn to shreds by the hidden clockwork. The room, like the rest of the dungeon, was being dismantled before her. Parts of other rooms she recognized were fit together into what had to be an entirely new layout. The rolling of cogs and the tone of the resonator were audible under the grind of stone against stone. Braziers were lit. Stone statues rose from the machinery and clicked into place. A balcony over Atlanta’s head that wasn’t there before slowly lifted its curtain, and revealed two spectators.

Sheogorath had draped himself in his usual, lazy position in a well-worn armchair. Haskill poured him a drink.


	9. Chapter 9

“ _ Son of a bitch, _ ” was all Atlanta could muster. The Madgod laughed from his position, on the observation deck no doubt meant just for him.

“Surprised? Frightened?  _ Betrayed? _ Say, you ever run a maze before, mortal?”

“ _ Fuck you! _ ”

“Language,” Haskill called down to her. Atlanta knocked back an arrow in response, aimed halfheartedly, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. Sheogorath laughed uproariously, full glass sloshing around in his hand.

“You’re not going to get out with  _ that _ attitude, I’m afraid! You might be one of those  _ born killer  _ types; but it’ll take more than your cold, murderous little hands to get out of this jam!”

Atlanta shook impotently in her anger. This was  _ bullshit _ , and King Bullshit of Jackass Mountain had her by the short hairs. “Alright, fuckin’….  _ fine! _ But if I get through this, you’re lettin’ me go!”

Sheogorath held a thumbs up in agreement. “Grakendrig’s honor! ...I  _ usually _ keep me word.”

And with that, the trials of Xedillian began.

The dungeon was unrecognizable now, leaving Atlanta to rely on intuition and the stubborn goal of just moving forward, at whatever cost. She could only play along, and hope to survive once Sheogorath was done with her. With the Grummites dead, the dungeon felt oppressively empty. Unsettling noises rumbled from behind the walls; the metallic clink of machinery, the grind of stone sliding into place. The occasional, distant cackle of the Madgod. A few turns through disorientingly identical, twisting corridors brought Atlanta to the first room.

Sheogorath still leered down at her, from a safe distance. Underneath his balcony, a single juvenile gnarl tottered passively on the stone floor. It wasn’t even half Atlanta’s height. She could probably just kick it and it would turn into splinters.

“C’mon now, this is just cruel. You’re gonna have me make firewood out of a baby?”

“Now, now; you should know by now to not believe everything your eyes tell you,” Sheogorath used his foot to lazily kick a button laid into the stonework. The guts of Xedillian kicked into life again.

A thick cloud of spores wafted from grating in the floor, dusting both Atlanta and the gnarl with yellow. She sneezed in response, eyes watering, her vision clouded as she could swear the creature was… growing….

…And it didn’t stop growing until its head-twigs brushed against the ceiling. Sheogorath’s laughter was drowned out by Atlanta’s shriek. Even Haskill allowed himself a small chuckle, watching their victim dodge the clumsy movements of the now-enormous plant.

“Not your most insidious idea, of course, but the hallucinogens really pull this one together.”

Sheogorath swirled the wine in his glass thoughtfully. “Is there anything that  _ can’t  _ be improved by a few hallucinations?”

It took a few terrifying moments, but it eventually clicked for Atlanta; the gnarl barely registered she was there. In fact, it didn’t seem to notice it had grown at all. The mirage of its size would occasionally clip through the confines of the room, and Atlanta suddenly felt very stupid.

Her two tormentors laughed and clinked their glasses together in a toast as she stood there, still dumbfounded from the spores. Haskill was the one who pressed the button that opened the next door for her.

Laughter and muffled conversation from the two haunted the empty hallways, as Atlanta could only stagger in a still-intoxicated daze.

_ “They’re going to have to develop up a tolerance, that’s for sure,” _

_ “Nahh, they’ll be fine. Let the mer enjoy the full brunt of it ‘afore they build up an immunity!” _

Atlanta was beginning to suspect the halls were purposefully turning around on her, forcing her to run in circles before spitting her back out into a few more traditional traps. The classic ones; stone statues that spit fire at her, hidden trapdoors that gave way under her feet, spikes shooting up from the floor. The lack of Sheogorath’s taunting presence meant these weren’t the main event, and only served to mount the tension. Alone, it was harder to ignore the unease she began to feel from being squeezed into hallways, and led into room after room of dour stone and the risk of death. It almost made the moments where Sheogorath made his presence known bring some relief. If only to remind her she wasn’t as alone as her mind tried to tell her.

A new chamber shifted around, and an entire section of the floor flipped around to reveal an enormous, gilded cage. Treasure so brilliant it glowed from its luster beckoned for Atlanta, as she still shook the effects of the spores from her mind. The balcony rolled on its own set of rails, and the walls pulled back to accommodate it at an angle prime for watching her.

Sheogorath poured another two glasses, with some difficulty, as Haskill sat in his lap. The Madgod looked down eagerly at the setup for another trick to be played.

“Oooh, I remember this one! The Demented option was a bit weak though, if you ask me.”

Haskill quietly scoffed, but couldn’t hide a faint smile. “Oh, please. The treasure idea is just  _ inane _ , there’s a million other ways to incite obsessiveness.”

“Adventurers, dear. We’re talking about  _ adventurers. _ They’re not exactly bright!” Sheogorath could see Atlanta looking up at them, hands on her hips, foot tapping impatiently.

“He’s right you know,” she called up to them, “this looks pretty damn stupid!”

“Didn’t ask you, thanks!!”

Sheogorath pressed a button with a little more force than necessary. A distant clanging came from the ceiling, and Atlanta had a bad feeling about standing where she did. She was quickly proved right. Narrowly side-stepping out of the way, she only caught a couple of keys falling on her head, rather than the clattering bulk of a man-sized pile.

It was  _ all _ keys; big, bronze skeleton keys, no doubt meant for the cage. The final keys clinked to the floor and the pile settled under its own weight, and an awkward silence followed. Atlanta looked back up at them expectantly.

“... Well?”

The two spectators stared back. “… That’s it.” Sheogorath admitted, finally.

Atlanta kicked a loose key across the floor, letting it clatter against the far wall. “Well, this one was just kinda sad, actually.”

Before Sheogorath could get a word in edgewise, she had already turned to leave out a newly-placed door.

Haskill sighed, watching their victim continue onward unfazed. “I’m picking the next one.”

Sheogorath pouted at him. “Aw, you always pick the ones that just kill them.” 

 

Atlanta could see the moving balcony on rails roll past her in some rooms, trying to keep pace. The ‘regular’ traps were just distracting, now, but they were slowly but surely wearing her down. She owed her newfound strength and reflexes to her survival, but she couldn’t keep this up forever.

She was trying to navigate a floor that was quickly crumbling over a pool of fetid swampwater, when she noticed them watching her again. In hushed voices, they debated what was probably her fate, slapping each other’s hands away from a control panel of sorts. When last the patterned tiles of the floor dropped into the scum, Atlanta found herself hugging the wall for dear life, toes just barely balancing on an unstable edge. Usually, by the time she cleared the room, the machine of Xedillian would begin crafting an entrance to a new room. This time, it didn’t.

From the far corner, Atlanta could make out amongst the stage whispering Haskill grumbling an accusatory “ _ Now _ look at what you’ve done.” The waterline below began to sink, and she could breath her first sigh of relief.

What was going to be a graceful landing to the bottom was ruined by the swamp slime that remained, and she slipped. Atlanta had the personal humiliation, or perhaps privilege, of being laughed at by a Daedric Prince for falling flat on her ass. From the stinking floor, she strongly considered just staying like this. Perhaps let them flush her down the drain as well. It had to be better than going a single step further.

“Aw, what’s the matter. Tuckered out already?” Sheogorath leaned dangerously over the side of the balcony. Haskill dutifully kept a hand on his Lord’s jacket collar, keeping him inside.

With some difficulty, Atlanta willed herself to stand up again, if only to glare at him properly. “If this shit’s the thanks I get for running your errands, I’d hate to see what you do to your enemies.”

“Maybe you will! Now, won’t  _ that _ be a good time?” Sheogorath beamed down at her, face extremely punchable in this light.

Ugh. “How much longer is this going to go on?”

The Madgod laughed as though she told a joke, and pulled another lever. “If you die, it’ll be over sooner, but let’s not ruin the surprise!”

The wall closest to her spun around to give her access to a door. The gauntlet continued.

 

The hallway Atlanta was funneled into got progressively colder as she neared the entrance to the next room. She didn’t think much of it; there were far stranger things to be worried about, after all. She was exhausted enough to hardly care when the next room revealed itself to be a gruesome slaughterhouse. Slightly chilled, long-dead corpses lined the walls and hung from meathooks on the ceiling. Well-used racks meant for restraining and stretching victims held slightly pulled-apart cadavers. The air was heavy with the stench of decay.

Atlanta watched the balcony roll into view with a critical eye. “You think this does anything for me now? I lived next door to this kinda shit for months.”

Haskill was the one who spoke up this time, elbow propped up on the railing to properly rest his chin in his hand for the most infuriatingly judgmental look possible. “One would think your attitude would have been tempered by your time in our Lord’s realm.”

_ “Bite me!!” _

The Chamberlain grimaced. His aloof demeanor faltered somewhat, enough to forcibly slam his open palm on one of the grinning buttons. The effect it had was immediate.

Atlanta first felt the shock through the chest. Cold, like ice running down her back, reverberating through her spine to her skull and through her extremities. For a horrible, excruciating moment, she felt the stillness of a heart no longer beating; something her brain screamed about, primally shocked. It only took seconds for the last synapses to fire and fizzle out, but every millisecond was stretched to an agonizing infinity. Hours, days, years, millenia. Atlanta, her blood starved brain in a stupor, could only look at the ghoulish set dressing of the room and wonder who it reminded her of.

A disorienting feeling of weightlessness set in, as though her body fell limp, but her soul remained. Opening her eyes, Atlanta saw that this was very literally the case. 

_ Not like this _ . No, no, not like **_this_ ** . She was doing so well, life almost had meaning to it again, she saw the  _ sun _ . Or at least, a facsimile of it. Atlanta couldn’t breathe, the very need of air absent but the instinctual desire for it remaining. Her chest heaved, without air filling ghostly lungs.

“Unpleasant, isn’t it?” Sheogorath’s voice pierced her skull like a headache. “Not quite what you were hoping for, was it? After all that time spent thinking trading a cell, for a different kind of prison in the end….”

Atlanta had no voice with which to properly scream at him. 

“Yes, yes, old wounds and all that. I don’t like opening them, either! Enough talk about the past. Let’s talk about…  _ the future _ .”

Sheogorath kicked open the railing of the balcony, causing it to unfold impossibly into just the right amount of stairs to reach the floor. He began a dramatically slow and sauntering descent.

“You’ve run the maze like a good little rat, now. Heck, you’ve even taken to dyin’ remarkably well, all things considered! You’ll need that talent, too, for what i’m about to propose.”

Reaching the floor, Sheogorath gave Atlanta’s rapidly-cooling corpse a sympathetic look. The glance he gave her spirit, however, was a more scolding glower. She instinctively flinched away from an attempt to grab her ethereal arm, and caused him to hesitate; a more polite, open hand was offered, instead.

With Sheogorath’s aid, Atlanta stepped back into her body. Her senses flooded back to her the instant cold air filled her lungs again; the sound of running machinery was too loud, the smell of death was nauseating. The color of Sheogorath’s flamboyant suit made her eyes hurt. Every bone in her body ached, but she could still  _ feel _ them. Feeling everything was preferred to feeling nothing.

The Madgod offered a bejeweled hand again to get her off the floor. He had soft, warm noble’s hands. Never worked a day in his life, obviously. Atlanta felt like a dying skeleton again, next to him.

“You’ve got quite the skillset for a prison rat who wished for nothing but death,” Sheogorath’s compliment was appropriately backhanded, yet said with a sickly-sweet veneer of mirth. “Unfortunately, I’m fresh out. You’ll have to wait for Jyggalag to offer you some, he’s coming quite soon you see.”

He brushed her off daintily, as if it would put a dent in the sheer amount of dungeon filth she had accumulated. “And, because our most unwelcome houseguest is paying us a visit soon, we’ll need a proper host to meet him! Of course, you’ll do nicely.”

“What?” Atlanta could barely manage to say, before Sheogorath cut her off.

“I bet you’ve heard, in fact you had  _ better  _ heard, that I’m lookin’ for a champion! Ah, i can see it in your eyes, you have.”

Atlanta’s stomach, already sore and empty, tied itself in a knot that brought burning bile to her throat.

“Oh yes, you  _ have _ .” Sheogorath concluded. He took a step back, and let Atlanta bend over in a painful heave.

She retched miserably, the sound echoing off the stone walls of the dungeon. Spitting a glob of stomach acid at the floor added an extra bit of emphasis to her curt reply of “ _ Hell no. _ ”

It only made him laugh.  “Splendid! You’ll make a fine addition. Maybe even a surviving one! Now, wouldn’t that be novel? A surviving champion. What do you think, Haskill?”

Haskill; talented in the art of standing just out of perception to step in at the right, alarming moment, already had a handkerchief out for Atlanta. There was pride evident on Sheogorath’s face, even if his new champion continued to cough and sputter in their nausea. The handkerchief was quickly ruined, fancy little embroidered _ F _ in the corner and all. Vomit splattered the stonework floor.

Haskill sighed, a truly resigned look on his face. “ _ Wonderful. _ Another piece of work hand-selected by your unfathomable wisdom.”

“Oh, I know you’re excited, don’t try to hide it.” Sheogorath jabbed an elbow towards Haskill’s side, and his chamberlain sidestepped it perfectly.

Blood rushed in Atlanta’s ears; a resounding headache was starting to welcome her back to the land of living. Her knees knocked together as she tried to stay at least mostly standing, bent over, trying to quell the disorienting wave nausea. The thrum of Xedillian’s activity had ceased, its apparent end now having been reached. It was over. It was over. She survived.

“Can I,” Atlanta hiccuped, bile tasting horribly sour in her mouth, “can I leave now?”

-

No sooner had Sheogorath handed Atlanta off to Xedillian’s keeper, had her body given out on her. She refused the care of the hermit, dreading the self-imposed prison he had carved out for himself in the walls. She needed fresh air. She needed to see outside again.

The gloomy, dead forests of Dementia that Xedillian sat on the edge of were cold and foggy, the time of day impossible to tell from the lack of a visible sun. It felt like she was in there for hours, but who knows? She was in there exactly as long as Sheogorath needed her to be. That could have been an eternity, for all she knew.

Now, Atlanta just needed to stumble back to civilization. How long was that going to take again?

The sky was a somber sheet of gray-blues and greens, as even the clouds seemed warped by madness. It wasn’t quite the sun or stars she had been robbed of for so long, but the breeze was cool and refreshing. The walk back would at least be peaceful, before the nonsense she had just faced reared its ugly head again.

Atlanta almost got as far as scouting out a safe place to rest, before a subtle rumble under her feet made her heart sink. Things suddenly felt horribly wrong, in a way that she was terribly familiar with by now. The frogs stopped croaking. The birds stopped singing. The air became so still, she felt like she was suffocating again.

The rumbling was behind her, distant enough that she couldn’t see what it was at first. Xedillian’s stone pillars shook from the apparent earthquake, upsetting loose rubble and clouds of dust. A resounding crack rang in the air, like a localized peal of thunder. It sounded quite clearly like trouble. It sounded like absolutely none of Atlanta’s business, too.

There was no dodging trouble in the Isles unfortunately, as it seemed engineered to slowly lumber your way. Literally, in this case. The large, shuffling monstrosities slowly trudged through the Demented muck without purpose, at first. The overcast light reflected sharply off of their armor, but did not pierce the opaque, crystalline hide to show that any mortal man was within. They looked for all the world to be  _ made _ by those crystals. The same crystals that were starting to breach the earth from below in smaller, sharp spears of unholy quartz.

Atlanta barely flinched out of hesitation, and it set them off. They locked onto their first moving target, and ran. The crystal carapace shifted and reformed around their mindlessly stretched-out arms; long spikes forming swords in their hands, whole forearms growing and flattening into shields. It would have been impressive if it wasn’t terrifying.

Their intents on slaughter revealed, the creatures seemed much less mindless. A better term for them would have to be merely single-minded. Like a gladiator filed with desperate bloodlust. Or a rabid animal. The fact that they seemed particularly sluggish in their armor was probably the only thing that kept Atlanta a hair’s breadth out of their reach. 

What they lacked in speed, they made up for in cooperation; between the two of them, they left no openings, no room for Atlanta to breathe. There was a pattern they stuck to, and they almost danced to it. Silent, save for the sound of grinding stone from the joints of their limbs. One unblocked slash to the chest effortlessly sliced through Atlanta’s leathers, and the sting of pain had her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

One desperate, reckless stab to one’s ‘helmet’ caught them in the eye slit of their visor. A lucky strike, but it left Atlanta open. Its partner’s sweeping strike caught her in the sword arm, and loosened her grip on the sword now sheathed in the other creature’s face. 

The monster didn’t scream, as a living creature would, but it droned in an unsettling, growling hum. A mimicry of those crystals. Dust began pouring out of the slits of its helm, and it fell to its knees.

Atlanta, briefly encouraged by knowing these things could be killed, landed a kick square in the remaining monster’s chest. The stagger gave her time to retrieve her blade, and angle a stab under its helm. Dust in the place of blood coated her arm, and stung when it touched her open wounds.

The crystalline thing crumpled to the ground, its sharply angled form scraping up the mud of Dementia as its weight settled. Atlanta’s shaking hand dropped her sword again; the grip slick from what she thought was sweat, only to find with muted horror that it was her blood. But… she wasn’t bleeding anymore, wasn’t she? Those wounds had already closed with unnatural speed. More strangeness from Relmyna’s profane humors, no doubt. It wasn’t the worst thing that could come of them. All that was left was the pain, her mind still convinced she was injured.

With the deaths of those strange things, it felt like a curse had been lifted. The birds began cautiously starting up their songs again. The breeze picked up, and carried the scent of rain through the marsh. Things almost seemed normal again. Normal by Isles standards, at least.

Too tired to ask more questions to herself, Atlanta simply yanked off the helmet-like head off one of the corpses, and trudged back towards civilization.


End file.
